Actor-Writer-Filmmaker Shruti Tewari: Think Amorphous

Two decades ago, Shruti Tewari left a career as an investment banker to raise her children and pursue a life in the arts. Since then she has acted in projects ranging from independent films to Bollywood Blockbusters, as well as becoming a playwright, screenwriter, and filmmaker, committed to writing and developing authentic stories about the Indian American diaspora. In this episode, she talks with host Tanya Shaffer about the challenges of moving from the finance world to the arts, her passion for elevating women’s voices, and her personal mantra, “think amorphous.”

Acting, Writing, Directing, FilmmakingTanya ShafferOctober 19, 2021acting, writing, film, filmmakers, creativity, creative processComment

Writer-Editor-Podcaster Carol Lloyd: Creating A Life Worth Living

In this episode, I talk with Carol Lloyd, author of the ground-breaking book Creating a Life Worth Living: Career Counseling for the Creatively Inclined, which came out in 1997 and is still going strong. We reflect on the book’s insights and lessons, what Carol gleaned from her conversations with creators from a wide range of art forms, and how her ideas have evolved in the time since the book came out. Currently, Carol is the VP and editorial director for Great Schools, a national non-profit focused on parenting and education, and host of the podcast Like a Sponge. Before that, she was an award-winning real estate columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle for ten years and edited the education section of Salon.com. Her work has been widely published and anthologized, including in the NY Times Magazine and on the radio show This American Life, and featured on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, PRI’s The World and KQED’s Forum and To the Best of Our Knowledge. She’s also a mom of two.

Arts, WritingTanya ShafferJune 30, 2021creativity, arts, artists, writing Comments

Poet Athena Kashyap: Where A Poem Lives

Athena Kashyap is the author of two exquisite books of poetry, Crossing Black Waters and Sita’s Choice. In this episode, host Tanya Shaffer talks with her about her writing process and they mysteries of courting the muse. They also discuss some of the themes Athena explores in her books, including the immigrant experience, the push and pull between freedom and responsibility, and women’s particular suffering, desires, and joys, in India and beyond. She also reads three of her gorgeous poems, including the one the episode is named for!

Poetry, WritingTanya ShafferJune 10, 2020creativity, poetry, writing, poets, Indian, India, South Asian Comment

Multidisciplinary Artist & Disability Rights Activist Gwynneth VanLaven: Am I Allowed to Laugh at This?

Multidisciplinary artist Gwynneth VanLaven uses photography, installation, performance, writing, and social engagement to challenge stigma, which she says “takes the real experience of real people and squashes it flat into stereotypes and presumptions.” Through work that is both playful and dark, layered with irony and mystery, she seeks to break down the binary thinking that separates “the well” from “the sick” and “the disabled” from “the non-disabled.” In this wide-ranging discussion, host Tanya Shaffer talks with Gwynneth about her improvisational photographic process, her interactive public experiments, and the humor and awkwardness of being fully embodied in art and life.

Off-Leash Writing