Books & Writers · The Creative Process: Novelists, Screenwriters, Playwrights, Poets, Non-fiction Writers & Journalists Talk Writing, Life & Creativity

Updated: 26 Aug 2025 • 530 episodes
www.creativeprocess.info/books-writers

Books & Writing episodes of the popular The Creative Process podcast. To listen to ALL arts & creativity episodes of “The Creative Process · Arts, Culture & Society”, you’ll find our main podcast on Apple: tinyurl.com/thecreativepod, Spotify: tinyurl.com/thecreativespotify, or wherever you get your podcasts! Exploring the fascinating minds of creative people. Conversations with writers, artists & creative thinkers across the Arts & STEM. We discuss their life, work & artistic practice. Winners of Pulitzer, Oscar, Emmy, Tony, leaders & public figures share real experiences & offer valuable insights. Notable guests include: Neil Gaiman, Roxane Gay, George Pelecanos, George Saunders, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Jericho Brown, Joyce Carol Oates, Hilary Mantel, Daniel Handler a.k.a. Lemony Snicket, Siri Hustvedt, Jeffrey Sachs, Jeffrey Rosen (National Constitution Center), Tom Perrotta, Ioannis Trohopoulos (UNESCO World Book Capital), Ana Castillo, David Tomas Martinez, Rebecca Walker, Isabel Allende, Ian Buruma, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Ada Limon, John d’Agata, Rick Moody, Paul Auster, Robert Olen Butler, Yiyun Li, Rob Nixon, Tobias Wolff, Yann Martel, Junot Díaz, Edna O’Brien, Eimear McBride, Jung Chang, Jane Smiley, Marge Piercy, Maxine Hong Kingston, Sara Paretsky, Carmen Maria Machado, Neil Patrick Harris, Jay McInerney, Etgar Keret, DBC Pierre, Adam Alter, Janet Burroway, Geoff Dyer, Jenny Bhatt, Hala Alyan, E.J. Koh, Jeannie Vanasco, Lan Samantha Chang (Iowa Writers Workshop), Alice Fulton, Alice Notley, McKenzie Funk, Emma Walton Hamilton, Krys Lee, Douglas Kennedy, Sam Lipsyte, Charles Baxter, Azby Brown, G. Samantha Rosenthal, Ashley Dawson, Douglas Wolk, Suzanne Simard, Seth Siegel, Richard Wolff, Todd Miller, Giulio Boccaletti, Amy Aniobi, among others. The interviews are hosted by founder and creative educator Mia Funk with the participation of students, universities, and collaborators from around the world. These conversations are also part of our traveling exhibition.
 www.creativeprocess.info For The Creative Process podcasts from Seasons 1 & 2, visit: tinyurl.com/creativepod or creativeprocess.info/interviews-page-1, which has our complete directory of interviews, transcripts, artworks, and details about ways to get involved.

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“As I was reading Hooks and Freire, a colleague recommended Adrian Rich's essay "Teaching Language in Open Admissions." It was in that essay that I first read about her experiences teaching at CUNY during open admissions, learning that she taught alongside June Jordan, Audre Lorde, and Toni Cade Bambara. Eventually, th

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In this time of rapid technological change, how do we hold onto our humanity? How do stories, traditions, and community help us find meaning in loss and face an uncertain future? How can science, art, and spirituality open new pathways to understanding ourselves and the human experience? PAUL SHRIVASTAVA (Co-President

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“I work in between archeology and anthropology in this field called either historical archeology or contemporary archeology. At the heart of that is the relationship between objects and humans. How do we write about the past or the present in terms of listening to human voices or evidence from things where maybe human

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“If we look at the entire history of the human experience, if you saw some text or you heard some spoken language, you could 100 percent reliably infer that there was a human who created that. Our experience of having that text or that image generated for us is very akin to the experience of a magic trick, and we sort

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“There's a word for this brain rot, right? I think that's very real. There are studies coming out now that are showing that the more and more of our cognitive labor we offload to AI systems, the less creative we become, the less critical we become, and the less of our human faculties for reason we use. There's somethin

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“I had to become the father of my family very young because my parents divorced when I was 12. My situation was a little bit unusual in that my father kind of disappeared, and I had been making a fair amount of money as a kid, doing commercials and television and film. We needed money, and I kind of became the breadwin

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