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The Time is Right for living a creative life. We discuss how to live life with a focus on creativity and why that’s a good thing for everyone.

Episode 11: Interview with Author & Translator Kristin Osani

The Time is Right
The Time is Right
Episode 11: Interview with Author & Translator Kristin Osani
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Kristin Osani is a queer writer who lives in Kyoto, Japan where she works as a freelance Japanese-to-English video game translator when she’s not wordsmithing, working on nerdy cross-stitching, or cuddling her two cats (three if you include her husband).

Her fiction has appeared in FlashPoint SF, the Arcanist, and Ghost Orchid Press’s Beyond the Veil: Supernatural Tales of Queer Love anthology.

Kristin’s website is https://www.kristinosani.com/

Kristin shared her experience with creativity through her work as a video-game translator, her writing, cross-stitching, and drawing.

Kristin’s creative resources:

For writers struggling to create protagonists well: The Protagonist Problem.

Brandon Sanderson’s Creative Writing Lectures on Youtube

Ellen Brock‘s YouTube channel

Writing Excuses Podcast

Save the Cat!, by Blake Snyder

Take Off Your Pants!: Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing, by Libbie Hawker

The Emotional Craft of Fiction: How to Write the Story Beneath the Surface, by Donald Maas

Wonderbook: the Illustrated Guide to Creating Fiction, by Jeff VanderMeer

The Nebula Conference is a great place for SFF writers to connect and learn.

John suggested The Listening Book: Discovering Your Own Music, by W. A. Mathieu

Kevin mentioned** the book The Lady from the Black Lagoon, by Mallory O’Meara

**Actually, Kevin mis-titled the book repeatedly in the episode. That’s what happens when you don’t look at your notes. 🙄 Apologies to Mallory O’Meara.

Episode 10: Interview With Multi-Creative Jonathan Hansen

The Time is Right
The Time is Right
Episode 10: Interview With Multi-Creative Jonathan Hansen
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This time we’re joined by author, artist (painting, NFT, sculptor), musician, and teacher Jonathan Hansen, aka Johan Michaels. We talked about deciding which creative endeavor to pick up when he has so many, creative energy, his influences, writing, and music. Jonathan also talked about NFTs as a creator.

Jonathan’s website: https://johanmichaels.weebly.com/

Resources we mentioned:

  • A good video explaining NFTs
  • Pexels is a resource for royalty free videos.
  • Distrokid is a service that distributes music to all the major platforms, like Spotify and Apple.
  • Steven King’s On Writing is a good resource for writers.
  • Fabula – storytelling cards
  • NFT Marketplaces you can browse: OpenSea and Objkt

Also, take a walk when the going gets tough, and keep a creativity journal.

Episode 9: Interview with Author & Creative Geoffreyjenn Edwards

The Time is Right
The Time is Right
Episode 9: Interview with Author & Creative Geoffreyjenn Edwards
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We continue our interviews, this time with Sci-Fi author Geoffreyjen Edwards.

We get into many aspects of creativity, including collaboration and how challenging yourself by going big rather than going home can be a successful creative strategy.

Before becoming a science-fiction writer, Geoffreyjen led a successful career as a full-time scientist. Indeed, he populates his world-building by drawing on experience in fields as diverse as astrophysics, artificial intelligence, geomatics, design, disability studies and the performing arts. Plenum: The First Book of Deo, is his first published novel. Dr. Edwards lives and works in Quebec City, Canada, and has published smaller pieces in both English and French. He also is a fashion designer. Look him up at http://www.geoffreyjenedwards.com.

Our Resources Mentioned:

Kevin talked about Art Breder: a site for making art cooperatively with artificial intelligence.

John suggested everyone bring and use their phone’s recorder to capture notes and ideas in those hot moments they occur. Also, a towel.

Geoffreyjen mentioned a site for ongoing conversations called Infinite Conversations. They are also running a publishing cooperative called Cosmos Coop.

Episode 8: Author & Multi-Creative Lily Hammer Interview

The Time is Right
The Time is Right
Episode 8: Author & Multi-Creative Lily Hammer Interview
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Our first interview with someone who isn’t us! We spoke with Lily Hammer (aka Kate), a writer, drummer, photographer, and all around creative. She talked about her approach to creativity, and how her creative efforts and interests have changed over time. She also shared how creativity helped her cope with a dark time in her life. How placing creativity at the forefront helps her be the hopeful and creative person she is today.

You can find Kate (Lily) on her website, Twitter, and Instagram.

This week’s creativity resources

Kate mentioned a TED Talk by Sir Ken Robinson during the interview. She also suggested the book Deep Work by Cal Newport.

John talked about the book Silence by John Cage.

Kevin recommended the poet Joy Harjo’s body of work. Poetry, essays, and flashes of memory. You can sample her work here and her books are here.