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

Mia Funk
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Aug 3, 2023 • 50min

DAVID FENTON - Founder of Fenton Communications, Author of The Activist’s Media Handbook: Lessons From 50 Years as a Progressive Agitator

How can we effectively communicate that we're moving beyond climate change to a state of climate crisis? The trapped heat energy on Earth is equal to a million Atomic bombs going off every single day. Today we talk to someone who's been mobilizing the public mind for over 50 years. David Fenton, named “one of the 100 most influential PR people” by PR Week and “the Robin Hood of public relations” by The National Journal, founded Fenton in 1982 to create communications campaigns for the environment, public health, and human rights. For more than five decades he has pioneered the use of PR, social media, and advertising techniques for social change. Fenton started his career as a photojournalist in the late 1960s – his book Shots: An American Photographer’s Journal was published in 2005. He was formerly director of public relations at Rolling Stone magazine and co-producer of the No-Nukes concerts in 1979 at Madison Square Garden with Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, Jackson Browne, and other artists. He has also helped create JStreet, Climate Nexus, the Death Penalty Information Center, and Families for a Future. He sold Fenton a few years ago to work on climate change full time. He is the author of The Activist’s Media Handbook: Lessons From 50 Years as a Progressive Agitator."So a lot has been corporatized. That is certainly true, but not everything. And it sounds like a cliche, but it really is true that history moves in pendulums and waves. And whatever is happening today is not going to last. It will change. So you have periods of concentrations of wealth and power, and then you have periods of rebellion. And I'm quite sure we're headed for another period of rebellion. You can see it a little bit now in the labor strife in the United States and the strikes. You can certainly see it in the massive demonstrations in France and Israel. Excessive concentrations of power breeds rebellion, and that's just inevitable. And the climate crisis is going to cause a lot of rebellion as people figure this out. And I think it's coming very soon, actually, because as you've noticed, the weather is getting very bad. It's become a non-linear accelerating phenomenon. And people will wake up to that. I just hope they wake up in time."https://davidfentonactivist.comwww.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Activists-Media-Handbook/David-Fenton/9781647228668https://fenton.comX / twitter @dfentonIG @dfenton1 facebook.com/davidfentonactivistwww.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastAll photographs © 1968-2022 David Fenton
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Aug 1, 2023 • 39min

SIMON DALBY - Author of Pyromania: Fire and Geopolitics in a Climate-Disrupted World

Wildfire season is starting earlier and lasting longer due to global warming across the world. What will we do to save the world on fire? How can we cure our addiction to fossil fuels which is verging on pyromania?Simon Dalby is author of Pyromania: Fire and Geopolitics in a Climate-Disrupted World and Professor Emeritus at Wilfrid Laurier University. His other books are Rethinking Environmental Security, Anthropocene Geopolitics: Globalization, Security, Sustainability, and Security and Environmental Change. He’s co-editor of Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, and Reframing Climate Change: Constructing Ecological Geopolitics."We also need to note most people move locally rather than globally. In the discussions about climate refugees, people are going to be dislocated. There are obviously going to be places that are going to become quite literally uninhabitable because they're too hot and too dry, or they've been flooded so frequently that they're just not sustainable. That said it is also worth pointing out that this climate change process is playing out in a global economy, which is also changing where people live and how people live very rapidly. the migration from rural areas to urban systems has been massive over the last couple of generations. We became an urban species."https://experts.wlu.ca/simon-dalby-1www.agendapub.com/page/detail/pyromania/?k=9781788216500www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
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Jul 24, 2023 • 32min

The Playbook: How to Deny Science, Sell Lies, and Make a Killing in the Corporate World with JENNIFER JACQUET

In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu interviews Jennifer Jacquet, who is an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Studies and Director of XE: Experimental Humanities and Social Engagement at NYU. She is also deputy director of NYU's Center for Environmental and Animal Protection. Her research focuses on animals and the environment, Agnotology, and attribution and responsibility in the Anthropocene. She is author of The Playbook: How to Deny Science, Sell Lies, and Make a Killing in the Corporate World-- a work of 'epistolary non-fiction' that makes the business case for scientific denial. Among other things, we learn how corporations create an arsenal of experts and pseudo-experts at prestigious universities to create misinformation and disinformation for corporate profit, and at great cost to the public. At the end, we make the case for a partnership between the sciences and the humanities to fight such lies and violence.Jennifer Jacquet’s research focuses on animals and the environment, Agnotology, and attribution and responsibility in the Anthropocene. She is author of The: How to Deny Science, Sell Lies, and Make a Killing in the Corporate World (Pantheon/Penguin, 2022)-- a work of 'epistolary non-fiction' that makes the business case for scientific denial. She also wrote Is Shame Necessary? (Pantheon/Penguin, 2015) about the evolution, function, and future of the use of social disapproval in a globalized, digitized world. She is the recipient of a 2015 Alfred P. Sloan research fellowship and a 2016 Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation.https://jenniferjacquet.com https://as.nyu.edu/faculty/jennifer-jacquet.htmlwww.palumbo-liu.com  https://speakingoutofplace.com https://twitter.com/palumboliu?s=20
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Jul 21, 2023 • 15min

How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice & Skill w/ JERICHO BROWN - Highlights

"I would like for young people to understand just how powerful they are, just how much what they do matters, that they really can make changes that change themselves and change their communities. Change readership, change what a readership can be. Change people's ideas about what a writer might look like, for instance. That we do have agency, that we do have power, that we can make differences."How do you find your voice? As a writer, how do you take what you know and what you believe to share your stories with the world? How do we let young writers know just how powerful they are and that what they do matters?In How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill Pulitzer Prize winning, and National Book Award finalist author Jericho Brown brings together more than 30 acclaimed writers, including the likes of Tayari Jones, Jacqueline Woodson, Natasha Trethewey, among many others, to discuss, dissect, and offer advice and encouragement on the written word. Brown is author of The Tradition, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he is the winner of the Whiting Award. Brown’s first book, Please, won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament, won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. His third collection, The Tradition won the Paterson Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His poems have appeared in The Bennington Review, Buzzfeed, Fence, jubilat, The New Republic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review TIME magazine, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry. He is the director of the Creative Writing Program and a professor at Emory University.www.jerichobrown.comwww.harpercollins.com/products/how-we-do-it-jericho-browndarlene-taylor?variant=40901184684066www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
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Jul 21, 2023 • 49min

JERICHO BROWN - Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet - Editor of “How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill”

How do you find your voice? As a writer, how do you take what you know and what you believe to share your stories with the world? How do we let young writers know just how powerful they are and that what they do matters?In How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill Pulitzer Prize winning, and National Book Award finalist author Jericho Brown brings together more than 30 acclaimed writers, including the likes of Tayari Jones, Jacqueline Woodson, Natasha Trethewey, among many others, to discuss, dissect, and offer advice and encouragement on the written word. Brown is author of The Tradition, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he is the winner of the Whiting Award. Brown’s first book, Please, won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament, won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. His third collection, The Tradition won the Paterson Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His poems have appeared in The Bennington Review, Buzzfeed, Fence, jubilat, The New Republic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review TIME magazine, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry. He is the director of the Creative Writing Program and a professor at Emory University."I would like for young people to understand just how powerful they are, just how much what they do matters, that they really can make changes that change themselves and change their communities. Change readership, change what a readership can be. Change people's ideas about what a writer might look like, for instance. That we do have agency, that we do have power, that we can make differences."www.jerichobrown.comwww.harpercollins.com/products/how-we-do-it-jericho-browndarlene-taylor?variant=40901184684066www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
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Jul 19, 2023 • 13min

Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear with ERICA BERRY - Highlights

"And I think for so long I thought I'm only going to write about the real wolf. That's the most important thing. We've had too many stories. And yet I've gotten to a point where I just think we are living in a world where any story that comes out of my mouth is shaped by these other stories I've heard which are rooted in ecology, just like stories about biology, stories about how we name wolves are rooted in human choices. Science is tied to colonialism. Stories about how people interact in the landscape are very tied to who those people are and how they feel. Are they meant to feel that they belong there?"The lone wolf is actually alone because it's looking for connection. They leave in order to find a mate and form their own pack. If loneliness is an epidemic, what can wolves teach us about loneliness, courage, and connection?Erica Berry is the author of Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear. Her essays in journalism appear in Outside, Wired, The Yale Review, The Guardian, Literary Hub, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and Guernica, among other publications. Berry has taught workshops for teenagers and adults at Literary Arts, the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, the New York Times Student Journeys in Oxford Academia.www.ericaberry.comhttps://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250882264/wolfishwww.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
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Jul 19, 2023 • 46min

ERICA BERRY - Author of Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear

The lone wolf is actually alone because it's looking for connection. They leave in order to find a mate and form their own pack. If loneliness is an epidemic, what can wolves teach us about loneliness, courage, and connection?Erica Berry is the author of Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear. Her essays in journalism appear in Outside, Wired, The Yale Review, The Guardian, Literary Hub, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and Guernica, among other publications. Berry has taught workshops for teenagers and adults at Literary Arts, the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, the New York Times Student Journeys in Oxford Academia."And I think for so long I thought I'm only going to write about the real wolf. That's the most important thing. We've had too many stories. And yet I've gotten to a point where I just think we are living in a world where any story that comes out of my mouth is shaped by these other stories I've heard which are rooted in ecology, just like stories about biology, stories about how we name wolves are rooted in human choices. Science is tied to colonialism. Stories about how people interact in the landscape are very tied to who those people are and how they feel. Are they meant to feel that they belong there?"www.ericaberry.com https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250882264/wolfishwww.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastPhoto by Andrea Lonas
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Jul 18, 2023 • 30min

ELLIOT LEE - Alt Pop Singer/Songwriter, LGBTQIA+ Openly Non-binary - Autism Awareness Advocate

Have you ever experienced the feeling of being alone and not having a community? How can we build an atmosphere of inclusion and greater understanding? Brooklyn-based artist Elliot Lee fuses dark pop melodies with edgy vocals and innovative electronic-rock soundscapes to create an unpredictable sound, acting as a voice for the voiceless. Elliot Lee holds an awareness of what music that is unhindered by norms can do for the underrepresented. Elliot’s single "Easy To Be You” is dedicated to the LGBTQIA+ community and was released during PRIDE Month. Elliot confides that the release is, "about struggling with self image and identity expression as a queer person."I struggle a lot with the feeling of being alone and not having a community. And I did even more as a teenager. That's kind of what my music is about, finding those people who get it so you don't feel like you're alone anymore. And that's why I talk about things that maybe I wouldn't talk about outside of music, because in music it's a safer and easier way to find people who really get it."www.elliotlee.com https://song.space/2nldde/song/2477503www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
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Jul 14, 2023 • 11min

How can we retell the story of America? with Author TOM LIN - Highlights

"When I was growing up, it was all about representation. I think that was the thing that was being championed: we need more people of color in books, movies, across all media. And then I think what we saw was an extremely cynical and capitalistic-minded ruthless optimization of that, where someone said: Oh, you want representation? Then we'll just throw in token people of color into projects. And then we'll check that box. And I think that became so prevalent in so many pieces of media that that became what we thought of as representation. I think it's a salvageable concept because, I mean, when I encountered books growing up, they were all with white people in them. Front to back, start to finish. It was just white characters. And so when I started writing stories of my own in school as a middle schooler they - surprise - they had white people in them, right? There were just white people talking about other white people. I went to public school in Queens. I knew very few white people. And so I think what representation does at its best is that it informs the boundaries of possibility. By seeing yourself represented in media, you become able to imagine your own stories transpiring in media and being made available for everybody else to witness.And so I think the point of representation is not just if we do a checklist of this piece of media, can we find a person of color. But I think the idea of representation is more that we want to be expanding the realm of storytelling, expanding what's possible by telling these stories that are not normally told.”How can we retell the story of America? In the United States of Amnesia, why does the Western celebrate cowboys but not all people who built this country? What does a Chinese-American hero look like in the 21st Century?Tom Lin is an American writer whose 2021 debut novel The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu chronicles the story of a Chinese American outlaw seeking revenge during America's railroad boom. The book won the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, making Lin the youngest Carnegie winner in the prize’s history. Tom Lin is currently pursuing an English doctorate at the University of California Davis.https://twotreeforest.comwww.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/tom-lin/the-thousand-crimes-of-ming-tsu/9780316542173/?lens=little-brownwww.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastImage courtesy of Little, Brown and Company & Tom Lin
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Jul 14, 2023 • 42min

TOM LIN - Author of The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu - Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction 2022

How can we retell the story of America? In the United States of Amnesia, why does the Western celebrate cowboys but not all people who built this country? What does a Chinese-American hero look like in the 21st Century?Tom Lin is an American writer whose 2021 debut novel The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu chronicles the story of a Chinese American outlaw seeking revenge during America's railroad boom. The book won the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, making Lin the youngest Carnegie winner in the prize’s history. Tom Lin is currently pursuing an English doctorate at the University of California Davis."When I was growing up, it was all about representation. I think that was the thing that was being championed: we need more people of color in books, movies, across all media. And then I think what we saw was an extremely cynical and capitalistic-minded ruthless optimization of that, where someone said: Oh, you want representation? Then we'll just throw in token people of color into projects. And then we'll check that box. And I think that became so prevalent in so many pieces of media that that became what we thought of as representation. I think it's a salvageable concept because, I mean, when I encountered books growing up, they were all with white people in them. Front to back, start to finish. It was just white characters. And so when I started writing stories of my own in school as a middle schooler they - surprise - they had white people in them, right? There were just white people talking about other white people. I went to public school in Queens. I knew very few white people. And so I think what representation does at its best is that it informs the boundaries of possibility. By seeing yourself represented in media, you become able to imagine your own stories transpiring in media and being made available for everybody else to witness.And so I think the point of representation is not just if we do a checklist of this piece of media, can we find a person of color. But I think the idea of representation is more that we want to be expanding the realm of storytelling, expanding what's possible by telling these stories that are not normally told.”https://twotreeforest.comwww.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/tom-lin/the-thousand-crimes-of-ming-tsu/9780316542173/?lens=little-brownwww.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastImage courtesy of Little, Brown and Company & Tom Lin

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