Speaker. Storyteller. Coach.
In this episode, we talk to Tim Donovan, who went to art school in his early 40s while helping to manage a brain injury rehabilitation program, and is now the co-director of NYC’s Launch F18 gallery.
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Algoma, Wisconsin and Joan of Arc inspired this podcast! As did Mary Oliver’s quote: “The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.” Listen to the backstory and hear the No Time to be Timid manifesto.
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Several years ago, I heard the writer Janelle Hanchett on the podcast Unmistakably Creative. She was fearless. In short, she said she realizes that some people are going to like her, and some people are not, but what is most important to her is that she tells the truth as she sees it. She got my attention. As a writer — and sometimes as a person navigating this world — I’ve spent a lot of energy putting harmony before truth, just to avoid the fallout. I’m not sure that’s the best use of my gifts.
Janelle writes a blog called Renegade Mothering (Her tagline: join me in the fight against helpful parenting advice). I’m not a mother, but she was so compelling, I checked it out. On her website she says the two blogs that terrified her the most to write — one about her alcoholism, one about race — are the blogs that make her the most proud.
Her blog about her alcoholism was the seed for Janelle’s new and fantastic memoir, I’m Just Happy to Be Here, which is the story of her struggle from young motherhood to addiction and now recovery. I’ve never been in her situation, but I completely related to how she felt, and that’s the measure of a great story. When Janelle recovers, we celebrate the possibility of our own recovery from whatever demons we’re fighting — and we’re all fighting something. Her candor and humor — her truth — show us that we all have a rock bottom, that we all are connected on this human journey, and that creative expression can help set us free.
I’m lucky to now call Janelle a writing mentor and a friend. Buy her book, either online, on audible.com, or at your independent bookstore. You will be all the better for it.
Marion Roach Smith is the author of “The Memoir Project,” one of the best books I’ve read on the subject. I’ve started reading her website, too — it’s incredibly helpful if you’re a writer — and one of her blogs was entitled something like “Ten things I learned about memoir writing in 2017.” I thought it was a great idea, and it made me think about what I’d learned about memoir writing, too. Then it made me think about what else I might have learned that had nothing to do with writing. Looking back, here’s a few things 2017 taught me to do: [Read more…] about Three Things I Learned in 2017
Thirty years ago, on January 6, 1987, I hopped a plane, left my hometown of Tampa, and moved to New York. I had no job and I’d never met my roommates, but to me the risk was worth it — I wanted to do something exciting. I also wanted my long-distance boyfriend who lived in NYC to marry me and I thought proximity might move things along. [Read more…] about On Having an Epiphany