Recently I’ve had to make some pretty large life decisions, as I’m sure most people reading this have. The pandemic has changed lives irreparably in so many ways, causing people to rethink their career paths, lose jobs they thought were stable, move to be closer to family, deal with increased…

Recently I watched the film Gather (available to rent or purchase on Amazon Prime Video, or stream on-demand on Vimeo or iTunes), tasked with considering it for a series of film screenings and associated panel discussions I am involved with organizing. …

This is, and isn’t, about the COVID-19 pandemic. I hope this article is useful beyond/outside of quarantine circumstances because so many creatives (artists, writers, poets, designers, etc.) struggle with these issues periodically throughout their lives. Let’s start with what should be obvious, but somehow isn’t: You are not obligated to…

It is a new year and a new decade! While I don’t do resolutions, I thought I would share some ideas we could all incorporate into the next decade. These are attitudes and practices that will make us better people and help us create a better world. It seemed better, rather than talking about what to leave behind, that we instead talk about what we can carry forward. Here are just a mere five suggestions, from me to myself, and to you…

Content Note for discussions of mental health/illness, other disabilities, suicide, etc. Yes, you’re a bad friend if you aren’t checking in on any of your friends regularly. There, I said it. I know… you’ve probably read a bunch of social media posts claiming we shouldn’t assume people are bad friends…

Every good thing starts with one step and to get more of this we need to talk about how to take that first step, but we also need to be willing to have more critique. Equity is not a one-time event, and we need more of these small steps to get there. — This essay was inspired by to Jenn Schaub’s “More of this, please: Action.” Schaub’s essay was exciting to me, as I nodded along to so much of it. …

TW: Mentions of violence, abuse, sexual assault, suicide, etc. Today we celebrate women. But I don’t want to talk about all women today. I want to tell you there are women who are profoundly more in need than some other women. …

I was expecting claims that creative brilliance are directly related to mental illness—a myth often used to excuse bad, abusive behavior. While there was little of that, thankfully, what was there wasn’t any better. — The Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts (UICA) hosted a panel talk Thursday night that was marketed as a discussion of “the impacts of creative expression on the brain.” Artist Rick Beerhorst promoted it with a Facebook post that read in part “Why do so many people who work in creative…

In preparing for the new year, where does one even start? New years seem arbitrary as a force for “change” and resolutions seem trite (no one keeps them anyway, right?) 2017 has been rough though. For almost everyone. For me, for sure. For others, even worse than for me. Last…