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

Kiriakos Spirou is an editor, writer, content creator, pianist and composer based in Athens, Greece. After studying music in his hometown of Limassol, and then musicology in Athens, he moved to The Netherlands to complete a master's course in Music Design at the Utrecht School for the Arts. He is currently the deputy editor of Yatzer.com, and works for various publications as a freelancer. He is also the founding editor of Und. Athens, a new, alternative art guide for Athens.· kiriakosspirou.wordpress.com/about/ · yatzer.com/yatzerpedia/kiriakos-spirou
· www.creativeprocess.info

“There’s a lot of controversy about that idea at the moment, about whether fiction is truly empathic and how much freedom the imagination should have because, as one of my friends says, the imagination is not free. It comes from all of the places that we come from. So it’s a controversial notion, but I am firmly on the side of literature is empathic. In fact, I think that all the arts are empathic because all the arts basically say, ‘Wait a minute. Look at it this way.’ And they allow us to see from some other vantage point than our extremely self-interested selves.”Janet Burroway is the author of plays, poetry, esssays, children’s books, and nine novels including The Buzzards; Raw Silk, Opening Nights, Cutting Stone (all Notable Books of The New York Times Book Review), Bridge of Sand and Simone in Transit. Plays include Parts of Speech, Sweepstakes, Boomerang, and Medea With Child, which have received readings and productions in Chicago, New York, London, San Francisco, Hollywood, and various regional theatres; Her Writing Fiction, now in its tenth edition, is the most widely used creative writing text in America, and Imaginative Writing is in its fourth edition. She is author of a collection of essays, Embalming Mom and the memoir Losing Tim. Winner of a Lifetime Achievement Award in Writing from the Florida Humanities Council, she is Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor Emerita at the Florida State University. · janetburroway.com · www.creativeprocess.info

Janet Burroway is the author of plays, poetry, esssays, children’s books, and nine novels including The Buzzards; Raw Silk, Opening Nights, Cutting Stone (all Notable Books of The New York Times Book Review), Bridge of Sand and Simone in Transit. Plays include Parts of Speech, Sweepstakes, Boomerang, and Medea With Child, which have received readings and productions in Chicago, New York, London, San Francisco, Hollywood, and various regional theatres; Her Writing Fiction, now in its tenth edition, is the most widely used creative writing text in America, and Imaginative Writing is in its fourth edition. She is author of a collection of essays, Embalming Mom and the memoir Losing Tim. Winner of a Lifetime Achievement Award in Writing from the Florida Humanities Council, she is Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor Emerita at the Florida State University. · janetburroway.com · www.creativeprocess.info

“I think the most critical thing is education for critical thinking. The ability to listen to a political argument or an argument of any sort, on COVID, for example, or climate change, and not necessarily understand the science behind that, but to understand how to evaluate the credibility of the speaker, how to evaluate the logic of the arguments and to see whether a conspiracy theory is behind this that has no grounding… And so I think what’s especially important in would be an educational in critical thinking.”Robert Axelrod, Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Michigan where he has taught for over 4 decades. Receiving a PH.D. at Yale in Political Science, he is best known for his work and research concerning the evolution of cooperation and political behavior into the modern age, including topics like international and cyber security. He is an award-winning and extensively published scholar who has taught across the country, consulting for organizations like The UN, the World Bank, and the US Department of Defense. In 2012 he was awarded with the National Medal of Science by former US president Barack Obama concerning his extensive work in the behavioral social sciences. In this interview, Axelrod sits down with Mia to talk about his work, the current political climate, and his hopes for future political thinking and action.·fordschool.umich.edu/faculty/robert-axelrod
· www.creativeprocess.info

Robert Axelrod is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Michigan where he has taught for over 4 decades. Receiving a PH.D. at Yale in Political Science, he is best known for his work and research concerning the evolution of cooperation and political behavior into the modern age, including topics like international and cyber security. He is an award-winning and extensively published scholar who has taught across the country, consulting for organizations like The UN, the World Bank, and the US Department of Defense. In 2012 he was awarded with the National Medal of Science by former US president Barack Obama concerning his extensive work in the behavioral social sciences. In this interview, Axelrod sits down with Mia to talk about his work, the current political climate, and his hopes for future political thinking and action.·fordschool.umich.edu/faculty/robert-axelrod
· www.creativeprocess.info

Benh Zeitlin is a writer, director, and composer based in New Orleans, Louisiana. His films include the four-time Oscar nominated Beasts of the Southern Wild, Wendy, and the short Glory at Sea.  He composes music for his own films and others such as Brimstone & Glory and Mediterranea.  He also works to help emerging filmmakers making 'impossible' projects through the Court 13 collective - producing on films such as Burning Cane, Give Me Liberty, and No Kings.· court13arts.org· www.imdb.com/name/nm1022455/· www.creativeprocess.infoPhoto: C.C. Georges Biard

“For autistic individuals, there’s really sort of two paths. There are those today, about 35% percent of 18 year olds with an autism diagnosis who do go on to college or some form of post-secondary education, and then those who don’t. Of those who don’t and want to work, there’s about a 55% unemployment rate. And those who go to college and then look for employment afterwards, there’s about a 75 to 85% underemployment rate. So you can see the unemployment rates whether you go to college or not are astronomical, but they’re even higher if you go to college, which is sort of counterintuitive.” President and Founder of Integrate Autism Employment Advisors ("Integrate"), co-author of The Neurodivergent Job Candidate: Recruiting Autistic Professionals and An Employer’s Guide to Managing Professionals on the Autism Spectrum (2017) and frequent speaker on autism employment. Prior to founding Integrate in 2010, Ms. Scheiner held senior management positions in the financial services industry. Ms. Scheiner is a graduate of Wellesley College and has an MBA from Columbia University's Graduate School of Business. She is the parent of an adult son with autism.· www.integrateadvisors.org· www.creativeprocess.info 

President and Founder of Integrate Autism Employment Advisors ("Integrate"), co-author of The Neurodivergent Job Candidate: Recruiting Autistic Professionals and An Employer’s Guide to Managing Professionals on the Autism Spectrum (2017) and frequent speaker on autism employment. Prior to founding Integrate in 2010, Ms. Scheiner held senior management positions in the financial services industry. Ms. Scheiner is a graduate of Wellesley College and has an MBA from Columbia University's Graduate School of Business. She is the parent of an adult son with autism.· www.integrateadvisors.org· www.creativeprocess.info 

“In origami design, historically people have always used their intuition. They probably started by folding traditional shapes or folding designs by others, developed an intuitive understanding of how the paper behaves and then from there they can explore that intuition to create new shapes. That was the way design worked for years and years, that was the way it worked for me, but I eventually hit a limit to what I could do with my intuition and so part of my motivation for exploring mathematical methods was to externalise some of the design process. If I could get some of the design process on paper in a meaningful way, then I could handle more complicated goals than I could just fit in my brain.”Robert J. Lang has been working with origami for over fifty years and is now recognized as one of the world’s leading masters of the art and one of the pioneers of the marriage of origami with mathematics and technology. He has consulted on applications of origami to medical devices, airbag design, and space telescopes, is the author or co-author of twenty-one books and numerous technical articles, and lectures and consults on the connections between origami, science, and technology.· langorigami.com· www.creativeprocess.info

Robert J. Lang has been working with origami for over fifty years and is now recognized as one of the world’s leading masters of the art and one of the pioneers of the marriage of origami with mathematics and technology. He has consulted on applications of origami to medical devices, airbag design, and space telescopes, is the author or co-author of twenty-one books and numerous technical articles, and lectures and consults on the connections between origami, science, and technology.· langorigami.com· www.creativeprocess.info