Creative Recovery

Brenna Fitzgerald
Creative Recovery

Creative Recovery is a community of artists, healers, activists, entrepreneurs, and anyone seeking to nourish a creative relationship to life. In this podcast, we explore creativity as an agent of healing and social change. I am your host, Brenna, writer, editor, and coach. I’m inspired to help listeners open to play, process, and the unknown. Join me as I step into conversation with people of diverse backgrounds and identities committed to creative living. Creative Recovery will help anyone tap into their inner resources and live a life of presence and joy.

  1. 10/05/2022

    Rachel Dickinson on Writing Through Grief

    Rachel Dickinson @geology26 has lived a rich life full of adventure, joy, loss, and love. A native of Freeville, New York, her family first settled in this region right after the American Revolution when her fifth-great grandfather received a tract of land as payment for his services during the war. The landscape of home has always deeply affected her; in particular, features created during the last Ice Age as glaciers carved waterfalls and gorges and rounded hills. In this episode she tells the story of writing through grief after the suicide of her teenaged son, Jack, a decade ago. Her insights into the wild and mysterious landscape of human emotion will open your mind and your heart. With honesty and vulnerability, Rachel explores the relationship between creativity and healing and what it means to seek her truth and to share it on the page. Rachel received a degree in geology from Kirkland College, studied American History at the University of Delaware, and eventually got an MFA in nonfiction from Goucher College. She was a travel writer for about a decade, publishing pieces in The Atlantic, Smithsonian.com, Outside.com, and Audubon. Her essays have appeared in Catapult, Aeon, and Salon. As an author, she's written seven nonfiction books including Falconer on the Edge, The Notorious Reno Gang, and her forthcoming memoir The Loneliest Places: Loss, Grief, and the Long Journey Home. Her latest book explores the complicated world of loss and grief and what it means to be part of a family after the suicide of her son. Notes and Resources: Rachel on Facebook Rachel on Instagram: @geology26 Rachel on Twitter: @rachelbirds This episode was edited and mixed by Chad Clarke, chadtheva@gmail.com

    59 min
  2. 08/10/2022

    Regi Carpenter on Re-storying Your Life

    Every life is a collage of stories. For Regi Carpenter @regicarpenter, the most important stories are the stories that have not been told, what goes unsaid. Stories shape (and re-shape) beliefs, connect humans, and offer a creative container for authentic expression. For over twenty years Regi has been bringing songs and stories to audiences of all ages throughout the world in schools, theaters, libraries, at festivals, conferences, and in people’s backyards. Listen to this intimate conversation about the transformative power of storytelling and how you can re-story your life as a way to heal from past wounds. We also talk about the emerging field of narrative medicine, the healing potential of sharing your story, how to make stories come alive orally and on the page, and using fear as an opportunity to let go and trust. An award-winning performer, Regi Carpenter has toured her solo shows and workshops in theaters, festivals, and schools, nationally and internationally. She is the recipient of many awards, and her stories have been featured on Sirius Radio, Apple Seed Radio, The Moth, and NPR. Regi is also the founder of Stories with Spirit, a creative initiative dedicated to bringing songs of joy and stories of hope to grieving children and the people who love and care for them in homes, hospices, and hospitals. Notes and Resources: www.regicarpenter.com This episode was edited and mixed by Chad Clarke, chadtheva@gmail.com

    53 min
  3. 07/27/2022

    Galina Singer on Feeling Safe to be Yourself

    It’s not easy expressing your authentic self. Galina Singer @galinasinger knows this all too well, having grown up in the former Soviet Union at a time when self-expression was heavily censored. Since then, she has devoted her life to peeling away layers of learned behaviors and limiting beliefs that covered her authentic self. Now as a writer and a coach, she helps others do the same. Listen to this riveting discussion and learn how to find safety and freedom to be yourself. We also talk about the process of healing trauma and working with fear and how this kind of deep inner work paves the way for free and open creative expression. Link to full episode in bio. Galina Singer is a writer, speaker, relationship philosopher, and a coach. She is passionate about liberating relationships from tradition so we can find more authentic ways to be together. Galina investigates subjects deemed taboo: shame, shadow, body, sexuality, infidelity, because what we keep hidden and repressed prevents intimacy in our relationships. By peeling away layers of societal and family conditioning she helps clients to re-discover their authentic voices and wake up to relationships and lives of freedom and fulfillment. Notes and Resources: Connect with Galina on her website, Facebook , Instagram, sign up to her Newsletter, and/or read her articles published in Elephant Journal Gabor Maté Peter Levine, Trauma Healing Bessel van der Kolk, MD, The Body Keeps the Score This episode was edited and mixed by Chad Clarke, chadtheva@gmail.com

    53 min
  4. 07/13/2022

    Christian Collier on Building Creative Community

    Christian Collier @ichristian3030 was riding back to his hotel after winning a poetry slam contest in Boston when he started taking inventory of his life. He felt so much gratitude for all the people and circumstances that led up to this celebratory moment and asked himself: if I was 15 again knowing what I now know, what would I want to see and have access to? From that moment, the seed of his community building heart began to blossom. He started organizing programs and coordinating literary workshops for teens, the efforts of which eventually led to the creation of The Plug Poetry Project, an arts initiative whose goal is to honor and grow Chattanooga’s poetry community by providing resources, classes, workshops, readings, and events. Christian’s story is deeply inspiring, filled with creativity, compassion, and a commitment to serving others. In this episode Christian talks in depth about his process writing The Gleaming of the Blade, his latest poetry collection examining Black masculinity in the contemporary American South. He discusses the power of journaling, the importance of taking risks in your work, and how being creative also means being resourceful, playful, and generous. Link to full episode in bio. Christian J. Collier is a Black, Southern writer, arts organizer, and teaching artist who resides in Chattanooga, TN. His works have appeared or are forthcoming in Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Michigan Quarterly Review, Atlanta Review, Grist Journal, and elsewhere. A 2015 Loft Spoken Word Immersion Fellow, he is also the winner of the 2020 ProForma Contest and the 2019-2020 Seven Hills Review Poetry Contest. Christian’s poems never shy away from interrogating harsh injustices and contending with the truth of today’s America, a truth sometimes beautiful, sometimes biting Notes and Resources: http://www.christianjcollier.com/ Insta: @ichristian3030 Twitter: @IChristian3030 The Plug Poetry Project Mark Bradford This episode was edited and mixed by Chad Clarke, chadtheva@gmail.com

    52 min
  5. 06/29/2022

    Jasna Bogdanovska on Staying Curious through Uncertainty

    Jasna Bogdanovska @jasnalika describes her first experience with photography as magical. In this episode, she tells her story of switching from the certainty and predictability of mathematics to the wild land of art and how this change sparked and still sparks enormous personal growth. Jasna’s creative process is one of exploration filled with uncertainty, unpredictability, and discomfort as well as adventure and excitement. She likens it to traveling. She says that most of her creative projects start as feelings of discomfort, concerns about social issues, and/or a generalized restlessness all of which she aspires to greet with curiosity and compassion. Listen to this inspiring conversation where we discuss fear as an invitation to be curious, failure as part of the process, and the freedom and strength that is possible when you welcome uncertainty. Link to full episode in bio. Jasna is a photographer, educator, avid traveler, and explorer of different cultures. She received both her Master of Fine Arts Degree in Fine Art Photography and her Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Photographic Illustration from Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York. Bogdanovska’s artwork explores issues of femininity, culture, migration, duality, identity and heritage using various mediums such as photography, installation and video. She is widely exhibited internationally in solo and group exhibitions including Macedonia, Iceland, Croatia, South Korea, Bosnia, Canada and the US. As an educator, Jasna Bogdanovska has taught classes in Iceland and has created international collaborations for her students with students in Taiwan, Brazil and Canada. As an Art Director and Photographer, Jasna has worked on advertising campaigns both in the US and Europe. Notes and Resources: Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner http://jasnabogdanovska.com/ This episode was edited and mixed by Chad Clarke

    49 min
5
out of 5
16 Ratings

About

Creative Recovery is a community of artists, healers, activists, entrepreneurs, and anyone seeking to nourish a creative relationship to life. In this podcast, we explore creativity as an agent of healing and social change. I am your host, Brenna, writer, editor, and coach. I’m inspired to help listeners open to play, process, and the unknown. Join me as I step into conversation with people of diverse backgrounds and identities committed to creative living. Creative Recovery will help anyone tap into their inner resources and live a life of presence and joy.

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