I love podcasting so much! Michele Northwood is another absolutely fascinating person I would not have met otherwise.

Michele and I chatted about the events that led her to write her fascinating memoir, Fishnets in the Far East - A Dancer's Diary in Korea, and so much more! In addition to her adventures as part of a cabaret dance routine in the middle east, Michele has said yes to working in the circus as a contortionist, trapeze and high wire artist. And then, you know, she started her own language school, because the opportunity showed up. Listen in to find out why Michele's favorite motto is "Say Yes to Everything" and how this philosophy can benefit your own creative life.

Listen or download here or at any of the podcast sites below.

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Why? What if? How?

What the heck is a questionologist? Why should you be one? What does a four year old girl possess that you need to have? How can asking the right questions empower our creative lives and improve our relationships? What questions should you be asking? 

Listen to the podcast for the answers, and for even more questions! 

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Then check out Warren Berger’s fascinating new release, The Book of Beautiful Questions, and stop by his website, A More Beautiful Question.com

What do you do when everything falls apart? That time in your life when you lose your career, your house, your sense of purpose and your self esteem?

If you’re Matt Buchman, you hop on a bicycle and head out on a round-the-world bicycle trip. And then, somewhere along the way, you get a book idea and you start to write and your first novel is born.

Matt joined me on Creativity Quest to talk about all of this - along with the creative openness that led him into writing a wide variety of genres, from Sci Fi to thriller to romantic suspense to straight up romance with a few other side trips along the way. You know that thing wise publishing people say about picking one genre and sticking with it? Matt is evidence that you can follow your creativity wherever it wants to go and be successful - he has 60 books in print and is a full time writer.

Also? Quilting. Who would have guessed, right? But it’s on the list of his creative outlets.

It’s taken Matt over twenty years to get to the place where he felt he could properly tell the story of that fateful bicycle adventure, but you can now pre-order Mid-Life Crisis on Wheels. Also watch for his thriller, Drone, coming soon.

Listen to the podcast below or at any of the following podcast outlets:

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“ He writes because it is the only thing he can do

when all around him others do too much or too little.

He writes because, whether he knows it or not,

he is in dialogue with God, translating the aching world,

making sense of things too terrible or beautiful

to believe, serving them up for others to take in,

word by word.

”

— Deborah Tobola, from To a Poet in Prison

I’ve been making sense of the world through story ever since I was a child, first through the books I read, and then through the poetry and the stories I wrote.

All through my adolescent years and the betrayals and growing pains of high school, during the harsh realities of life and death I first encountered in nursing school, and especially in the wake of my father’s early death and the tragic death of my first husband, writing was my salvation and my lifeline.

Deborah Tobola has lived her life around this belief, taking poetry and drama and music into the dark space of a men’s prison. As we discussed during our interview, art gave these men a voice where they had been silenced. It humanized them in a system built to punish and dehumanize.

Her memoir, Hummingbird in Underworld, recounts the life events that led to her work in prisons, intermingled with stories of the work that she did there and the men whose lives she touched.

Alternating between tales of creating drama in prison and Tobola’s own story, Hummingbird in Underworld takes readers on an unforgettable literary journey—one that is frank, funny, and fascinating.

Purchase Here

Listen to the podcast below, at the following links, or find it on your favorite podcast app.

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I loved this podcast conversation with my writer friend Christina Delay. We discussed her new Kris Faryn release, Song of Destiny AND the November cruise for Cruising Writers to the Bahamas. Christina assures me that the cruise ship will be safe from sirens, even those of the winged variety, so if you’re thinking you might want to join us, check it out!

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