LGBTQ+ Stories: The Creative Process: Gender, Equality, Gay, Lesbian, Queer, Bisexual, Homosexual, Trans Creatives Talk LGBTQ Rights

How do our personal relationships affect political movements and activism? What can we learn from Native American tradition to restore ecological balance? How can transforming capitalism help address global inequality and the environmental crisis?DEAN SPADE (Author of Love in a F*cked-Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell Together) shares his reflections on the importance of understanding common relational patterns within activist movements. He emphasizes the need for solidarity and collective action in response to global crises like the conflict in Gaza and ecological disasters. Spade argues for resilience and mutual support within activist communities as essential for sustained efforts toward systemic change.TIOKASIN GHOSTHORSE (Founder · Host · Exec. Director of First Voices Radio · Founder of Akantu Intelligence · Master Musician of the Ancient Lakota Flute) discusses the often-overlooked Native history and the Western historical domination that has shaped contemporary educational perspectives. He highlights the need for reconnection to Native perspectives and calls for an acknowledgment of the spiritual and cultural richness lost through historical and ongoing colonial practices.ALEXI HAWLEY (Showrunner · Writer · Creator of The Rookie · The Recruit) explores the complexities and challenges of depicting policing on television. Reflecting on the creation of his show "The Rookie" in the aftermath of Philando Castile's murder, Hawley discusses the show's evolution in addressing injustice in the justice system and the effort to portray an aspirational version of policing that acknowledges real-world issues.JERICHO BROWN (Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet · Director of Creative Writing Program · Emory University · Editor of How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill) delves into the complexities of being a Black writer, emphasizing the importance of embracing one's identity rather than trying to transcend it. He discusses how blackness enriches his craft and argues that the power of writing comes from its capacity to create new ways of seeing and understanding the world.PAUL SHRIVASTAVA (Co-President of THE CLUB OF ROME) analyzes the need for collaborative efforts across various sectors—businesses, governments, and individuals—to address global inequalities and environmental challenges. He underscores the imperative to reshape capitalist principles to reduce extreme inequalities and to foster a sustainable and equitable global system.To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram: @creativeprocesspodcast

In this episode of Speaking Out of Place podcast Professor David Palumbo-Liu talks with Maya Schenwar and Kim Wilson on their new book, We Grow the World Together: Parenting Toward Abolition. They talk about what inspired them to commission a wide range of amazing activists, artists, scholars, and organizers to write whatever came to their minds about the topic of parenting and abolition. The result is a rich mosaic of unique insights expressed in diverse forms, but each one touching deeply on the interdependency of living beings and the importance of caregiving in all its forms. It is this commitment that leads us always to imagine an abolitionist future for ourselves, and all children.Maya Schenwar is Truthout's editor-in-chief, author of Locked Down, Locked Out: Why Prison Doesn’t Work and How We Can Do Better, and co-editor of Who Do You Serve, Who Do you Protect? Police Violence and Resistance in the United States. Kim Wilson is an artist, educator, writer, and organizer. She is the co-founder, cohost, and producer of Beyond Prisons, a podcast on incarceration and prison abolition. A social scientist by training, Dr. Wilson has a PhD in Urban Affairs and Public Policy, and her work focuses on examining the interconnected functioning of systems, including poverty, racism, ableism, and heteropatriarchy, within a carceral structure. Her work delves into the extension and expansion of these systems beyond their physical manifestations of cages and fences, to reveal how carcerality is imbued in policy and practice. She explores how these systems synergize to exacerbate the challenges faced by under-resourced communities, revealing a deliberate intention to undermine and further marginalize vulnerable populations.www.palumbo-liu.comhttps://speakingoutofplace.comBluesky @palumboliu.bsky.socialInstagram @speaking_out_of_place

“This book has a lot of the wisdom of things that feminists and queers have learned in the community about sexuality, but the book is really for anybody who is political, even those just starting out and beginning to realize that there is something wrong with the systems they live under. I want to be in movements. Our movements are made of relationships. So, if you're just getting into our movements, or if you've been here for years and have been watching the ways we hurt each other and fall apart relationally, this book is about identifying these common patterns.”Dean Spade is an organizer, speaker, author, and professor at Seattle University's School of Law, where he teaches courses on policing, imprisonment, gender, race, and social movements. He is the author of Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During this Crisis (and the next) and Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law. His latest book is Love in a F*cked-Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell Together.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

Why is it that we find the courage to boldly confront mainstream societal norms and structures, yet are so often unable to treat romantic partners with care and generosity? Why do we lose our principles when we become insecure, disappointed, or jealous? Why do we act our worst in sexual and romantic relationships? And why do we prioritize romantic connection above other types of relationships, like friendship?Dean Spade is an organizer, speaker, author, and professor at Seattle University's School of Law, where he teaches courses on policing, imprisonment, gender, race, and social movements. He is the author of Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During this Crisis (and the next) and Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law. His latest book is Love in a F*cked-Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell Together.“This book has a lot of the wisdom of things that feminists and queers have learned in the community about sexuality, but the book is really for anybody who is political, even those just starting out and beginning to realize that there is something wrong with the systems they live under. I want to be in movements. Our movements are made of relationships. So, if you're just getting into our movements, or if you've been here for years and have been watching the ways we hurt each other and fall apart relationally, this book is about identifying these common patterns.”Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“As a filmmaker, I've always made films about extraordinary women whose lives are faced with extenuating circumstances who've had adversity thrown at them and who've risen to the occasion. And when I began to look at Diane's story, for me, Diane is a fashion designer, but she's so much more. Her central ethos is woman before fashion, and we felt it was very important to take that ethos and weave it into the spine of our film, and make it about the woman.In making this film, every single person who we called whose voice we wanted to include wanted to contribute. They wanted to say something about Diane, because she had left such a mark on their lives. Our producers’ jobs, Tracy and Fabiola, was to juggle those schedules. How do you juggle the schedule of secretary Hillary Clinton with Oprah Winfrey? How do you make sure that Anderson Cooper and Mark Jacobs, you know, in the filming time that we had, that we could put all of these people together? But Diane's friendships run deep with people, and people made sure to make time.You know, she was a single mother, and I think that young single mothers watching this film will feel for Diane, especially single mothers who are trying to be entrepreneurs, and creating businesses, and trying to find their way into the world to be able to raise a family. To do that as an immigrant in a new country is challenging, and Diane shows you just how challenging it is. In making choices about living her life, in being with her children or expanding her business, there were sacrifices that were made, and those sacrifices are boldly put on the screen for viewers to watch.”Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is an Oscar and Emmy award-winning Canadian-Pakistani filmmaker whose work highlights extraordinary women and their stories. She earned her first Academy Award in 2012 for her documentary Saving Face, about the Pakistani women targeted by brutal acid attacks. Today, Obaid-Chinoy is the first female film director to have won two Oscars by the age of 37. In 2023, it was announced that Obaid-Chinoy will direct the next Star Wars film starring Daisy Ridley. Her most recent project, co-directed alongside Trish Dalton, is the new documentary Diane von Fürstenberg: Woman in Charge, about the trailblazing Belgian fashion designer who invented the wrap dress 50 years ago. The film had its world premiere as the opening night selection at the 2024 Tribeca Festival on June 5th and premiered on June 25th on Hulu in the U.S. and Disney+ internationally. A product of Obaid-Chinoy's incredibly talented female filmmaking team, Woman in Charge provides an intimate look into Diane von Fürstenberg’s life and accomplishments and chronicles the trajectory of her signature dress from an innovative fashion statement to a powerful symbol of feminism.www.hulu.com/movie/diane-von-furstenberg-woman-in-charge-95fb421e-b7b1-4bfc-9bbf-ea666dba0b02https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/diane-von-furstenberg-woman-in-charge/1jrpX9AhsaJ6https://socfilms.comwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

How can we free ourselves from fear and social barriers to live more fulfilling and meaningful lives? What does it take to overcome trauma and turn it into triumph, and failure into reinvention? How can we shine a light on the marginalized and misunderstood to create social change that transforms the lives of women?Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is an Oscar and Emmy award-winning Canadian-Pakistani filmmaker whose work highlights extraordinary women and their stories. She earned her first Academy Award in 2012 for her documentary Saving Face, about the Pakistani women targeted by brutal acid attacks. Today, Obaid-Chinoy is the first female film director to have won two Oscars by the age of 37. In 2023, it was announced that Obaid-Chinoy will direct the next Star Wars film starring Daisy Ridley. Her most recent project, co-directed alongside Trish Dalton, is the new documentary Diane von Fürstenberg: Woman in Charge, about the trailblazing Belgian fashion designer who invented the wrap dress 50 years ago. The film had its world premiere as the opening night selection at the 2024 Tribeca Festival on June 5th and premiered on June 25th on Hulu in the U.S. and Disney+ internationally. A product of Obaid-Chinoy's incredibly talented female filmmaking team, Woman in Charge provides an intimate look into Diane von Fürstenberg’s life and accomplishments and chronicles the trajectory of her signature dress from an innovative fashion statement to a powerful symbol of feminism. Her other notable projects include A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness, Transgenders: Pakistan’s Open Secret, and the television miniseries Ms. Marvel.“As a filmmaker, I've always made films about extraordinary women whose lives are faced with extenuating circumstances who've had adversity thrown at them and who've risen to the occasion. And when I began to look at Diane's story, for me, Diane is a fashion designer, but she's so much more. Her central ethos is woman before fashion, and we felt it was very important to take that ethos and weave it into the spine of our film, and make it about the woman.In making this film, every single person who we called whose voice we wanted to include wanted to contribute. They wanted to say something about Diane, because she had left such a mark on their lives. Our producers’ jobs, Tracy and Fabiola, was to juggle those schedules. How do you juggle the schedule of secretary Hillary Clinton with Oprah Winfrey? How do you make sure that Anderson Cooper and Mark Jacobs, you know, in the filming time that we had, that we could put all of these people together? But Diane's friendships run deep with people, and people made sure to make time.You know, she was a single mother, and I think that young single mothers watching this film will feel for Diane, especially single mothers who are trying to be entrepreneurs, and creating businesses, and trying to find their way into the world to be able to raise a family. To do that as an immigrant in a new country is challenging, and Diane shows you just how challenging it is. In making choices about living her life, in being with her children or expanding her business, there were sacrifices that were made, and those sacrifices are boldly put on the screen for viewers to watch.”www.hulu.com/movie/diane-von-furstenberg-woman-in-charge-95fb421e-b7b1-4bfc-9bbf-ea666dba0b02https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/diane-von-furstenberg-woman-in-charge/1jrpX9AhsaJ6https://socfilms.comwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

“So for me, it just kind of removing a lot of the shame and then a lot of the energy that I was wasting trying to fit myself into a neurotypical process or framework or way of thinking or being. So, you know, some people call that unmasking, just kind of removing. I was wasting a lot of energy, basically trying to be someone else and function in a different way. And then just beating myself up internally for not being able to do that. And throughout my healing journey, as I really realized, Oh, that's actually what's happening. Like there's not actually anything wrong with me being able to...That's why it's called Love Your Brain. It's not just, you know, tolerate your brain. Or, fine, you can work with this brain that you have. It's like, no, I genuinely love the weird experiences that my brain can give me and the incredibly rich, deep experience I have of the world. Like I experience nature so deeply and so intensely. I have really strong connections with animals. I have really great intuition, which I think is just from picking up all this sensory data and putting it together. All these experiences that I get to have, but I don't get to have those experiences if I'm just trying to make myself be something else, which I think is most people who are late diagnosed, I feel like that's their experience. It's just like I've been trying to be someone else for so long. It's exhausting. And then you don't have the energy then to be creative, the carving out the time, making the time to actually create.”Mattia Maurée is an interdisciplinary composer whose work centers around themes of perception, body, sensation, trauma, and resilience. Their scores for critically acclaimed films have been played in 13 countries. Their poems have been featured in Boston City Hall as part of the Mayor's Poetry Program, Guerrilla Opera, and Arc Poetry Magazine. Mattia composes and performs on violin, voice, and piano, and has taught music for over 20 years. They have received a Master's of Music in Composition at New England Conservatory and a Bachelor's of Music from St. Olaf College. They also are an AUDHD coach, host the AuDHD Flourishing podcast and help other neurodivergent folks heal and find their creative flow in their course Love Your Brain.http://mattiamauree.comhttps://studio.com/mattiahttps://mattiamauree.com/love-your-brainhttps://www.audhdflourishing.com/hellowww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

How can we learn to flourish because of who we are, not in spite of it? What is the sensory experience of the world for people with autism and ADHD? How can music help heal trauma and foster identity?Mattia Maurée is an interdisciplinary composer whose work centers around themes of perception, body, sensation, trauma, and resilience. Their scores for critically acclaimed films have been played in 13 countries. Their poems have been featured in Boston City Hall as part of the Mayor's Poetry Program, Guerrilla Opera, and Arc Poetry Magazine. Mattia composes and performs on violin, voice, and piano, and has taught music for over 20 years. They have received a Master's of Music in Composition at New England Conservatory and a Bachelor's of Music from St. Olaf College. They also are an AUDHD coach, host the AuDHD Flourishing podcast and help other neurodivergent folks heal and find their creative flow in their course Love Your Brain.“So for me, it just kind of removing a lot of the shame and then a lot of the energy that I was wasting trying to fit myself into a neurotypical process or framework or way of thinking or being. So, you know, some people call that unmasking, just kind of removing. I was wasting a lot of energy, basically trying to be someone else and function in a different way. And then just beating myself up internally for not being able to do that. And throughout my healing journey, as I really realized, Oh, that's actually what's happening. Like there's not actually anything wrong with me being able to...That's why it's called Love Your Brain. It's not just, you know, tolerate your brain. Or, fine, you can work with this brain that you have. It's like, no, I genuinely love the weird experiences that my brain can give me and the incredibly rich, deep experience I have of the world. Like I experience nature so deeply and so intensely. I have really strong connections with animals. I have really great intuition, which I think is just from picking up all this sensory data and putting it together. All these experiences that I get to have, but I don't get to have those experiences if I'm just trying to make myself be something else, which I think is most people who are late diagnosed, I feel like that's their experience. It's just like I've been trying to be someone else for so long. It's exhausting. And then you don't have the energy then to be creative, the carving out the time, making the time to actually create.”http://mattiamauree.comhttps://studio.com/mattiahttps://mattiamauree.com/love-your-brainhttps://www.audhdflourishing.com/hellowww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

"That production was really close to my heart because I was a musical theater dancer in the eighties and so that whole storytelling was something that I personally had lived through and really understood. You know, I was that kid at the Pineapple Dance Studios. And gradually, as friends around me sort of began to become unwell, and actually, one of the first people that I knew who died from HIV was my singing teacher at the time, a guy called Chris Edwards. He was the first person that contracted HIV that I knew, and he died within 18 months. So Russell T. Davies. Peter Hoar, the amazing director, and myself were of the generation who had lived through this, but for the young cast it was something that was about history, so that work of really exploring it was important. And also then, there was a cast member for whom the experience of HIV was a lived experience.”Ita O’Brien is the UK’s leading Intimacy Coordinator, founder of Intimacy on Set (and author of the Intimacy On Set Guidelines). Her company, set up in 2018 provides services to TV, film, and theatre when dealing with intimacy, and is a SAG-Aftra accredited training provider of Intimacy Practitioners. Intimacy on Set has supported numerous high-profile film and TV productions including Normal People & Conversations With Friends (BBC3/Hulu), Sex Education 1&2 (Netflix), I May Destroy You (BBC/HBO), It’s A Sin (Channel 4), (Neal Street Prods / Searchlight Pictures).https://www.itaobrien.com/https://www.itaobrien.com/intimacy-on-set-guidelines.htmlhttps://www.imdb.com/name/nm1357677/www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

How can intimate scenes be brought to the screen in ways that respect the emotional well-being and privacy of the artists themselves? How do we make sure that we can create a story about abuse without anyone being abused in the process?Ita O’Brien is the UK’s leading Intimacy Coordinator, founder of Intimacy on Set (and author of the Intimacy On Set Guidelines). Her company, set up in 2018 provides services to TV, film, and theatre when dealing with intimacy, and is a SAG-Aftra accredited training provider of Intimacy Practitioners. Intimacy on Set has supported numerous high-profile film and TV productions including Normal People & Conversations With Friends (BBC3/Hulu), Sex Education 1&2 (Netflix), I May Destroy You (BBC/HBO), It’s A Sin (Channel 4), (Neal Street Prods / Searchlight Pictures).It's a Sin - Telling Stories About the HIV/AIDS crisis:"That production was really close to my heart because I was a musical theater dancer in the eighties and so that whole storytelling was something that I personally had lived through and really understood. You know, I was that kid at the Pineapple Dance Studios. And gradually, as friends around me sort of began to become unwell, and actually, one of the first people that I knew who died from HIV was my singing teacher at the time, a guy called Chris Edwards. He was the first person that contracted HIV that I knew, and he died within 18 months. So Russell T. Davies. Peter Hoar, the amazing director, and myself were of the generation who had lived through this, but for the young cast it was something that was about history, so that work of really exploring it was important. And also then, there was a cast member for whom the experience of HIV was a lived experience. I worked with two fantastic intimacy practitioners who were both under mentorship at that point in time, Elle McAlpine and David Thackeray."www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

"I had the first ever lesbian makeout scene on network television on a short-lived show called Relativity. That was another role where I felt really honored to be asked to do that, having been in and around the gay community my whole adult life. In the club scene, it was like all my friends were gay. So I was really happy to represent doing that. When I did my show Positive Me, we were in the middle of a horrible crisis. The AIDS crisis was very real to me and my friends and not real to the people that I knew from New Jersey. They thought it was government hype. They didn't believe in it. And so I couldn't even fathom that. And I had taken a class with Elizabeth Swados about writing satire, and she was very encouraging in terms of what I was doing. And so maybe it was just gumption. I just thought, Okay, then this is what I'm going to do!"From her role as Dr. Lisa Cuddy on the hit Fox series House M.D, to her starring role as Abby McCarthy in Bravo's first scripted series Girlfriend's Guide to Divorce, Lisa Edelstein's range of roles are as diverse talent. Some of Edelstein's feature credits include Keeping the Faith, What Women Want, Daddy Daycare, As Good as It Gets, and Fathers and Sons. She played a Holocaust survivor and adopted mother in the drama television series Little Bird. The story centres on a First Nations woman who was adopted into a Jewish family during the Sixties Scoop, as she attempts to reconnect with her birth family and heritage.Lisa’s career began by writing, composing, and performing an original AIDS awareness musical Positive Me at the renowned La Mama Experimental Theater Club in New York City. In the wake of COVID, Lisa began to paint using old family photographs as starting points. Her incredibly detailed paintings capture intimate relationships and spontaneous moments with honesty and compassion.https://lisaedelstein.komi.io/www.lisaedelsteinpaintings.com/www.imdb.com/name/nm0249046www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastArtworks:“Beach Day”, “Marsha”, “Karen” Courtesy of the ArtistLisa Edelstein in the StudioPhoto credit: Holland Clement, Courtesy of the artist

How can the arts help us examine and engage with social issues? How do our families shape our views, memories, and experience of the world?From her role as Dr. Lisa Cuddy on the hit Fox series House, to her starring role as Abby McCarthy in Bravo's first scripted series Girlfriend's Guide to Divorce, Lisa Edelstein's range of roles are as diverse talent. Some of Edelstein's feature credits include Keeping the Faith, What Women Want, Daddy Daycare, As Good as It Gets, and Fathers and Sons. She played a Holocaust survivor and adopted mother in the drama television series Little Bird. The story centres on a First Nations woman who was adopted into a Jewish family during the Sixties Scoop, as she attempts to reconnect with her birth family and heritage.Lisa’s career began by writing, composing, and performing an original AIDS awareness musical Positive Me at the renowned La Mama Experimental Theater Club in New York City. In the wake of COVID, Lisa began to paint using old family photographs as starting points. Her incredibly detailed paintings capture intimate relationships and spontaneous moments with honesty and compassion."I had the first ever lesbian makeout scene on network television on a short-lived show called Relativity. That was another role where I felt really honored to be asked to do that, having been in and around the gay community my whole adult life. In the club scene, it was like all my friends were gay. So I was really happy to represent doing that. When I did my show Positive Me, we were in the middle of a horrible crisis. The AIDS crisis was very real to me and my friends and not real to the people that I knew from New Jersey. They thought it was government hype. They didn't believe in it. And so I couldn't even fathom that. And I had taken a class with Elizabeth Swados about writing satire, and she was very encouraging in terms of what I was doing. And so maybe it was just gumption. I just thought, Okay, then this is what I'm going to do!"https://lisaedelstein.komi.io/www.lisaedelsteinpaintings.com/www.imdb.com/name/nm0249046www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastPhoto credit: Mitch StoneCourtesy of the artist

What are we willing to give up to find meaning, connection, and a sense of belonging? What happens if we don't self-promote, self-create, and self-brand on social media? Will we find the right partner? Will we get into the right college? Or find the best job?Tara Isabella Burton is the author of the novels Social Creature, The World Cannot Give, and Here in Avalon, as well as the nonfiction books Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World and Self-Made: Curating Our Image from Da Vinci to the Kardashians. She is currently working on a history of magic and modernity, to be published by Convergent in late 2025. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The New York Times, National Geographic,  Granta, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications."I think that we always try to find ways of defining ourselves against culture, archetypes, and narratives. And one of the things that interests me most is the process of trying to figure out what story we're in, to try to figure out who we are relative to stories. I don't think we are reducible to archetypes exactly, but I think that constant trying on the different hats, metaphorically speaking, and saying: Am I this? or Am I that? Am I a vamp? Or am I an ingenue? I would say that probably, as a woman, I am very, very aware of it. I think there is actually some kind of self-knowledge that is linked to knowing something true about ourselves."www.taraisabellaburton.comwww.simonandschuster.com/books/Here-in-Avalon/Tara-Isabella-Burton/9781982170097?fbclid=IwAR30lnvlXMrDJtCq_568jUM3hvzr6yUz_GUUZSkbR2RarreOF6PMcvhabBgwww.amazon.com/dp/B07W56MQLJ/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?keywords=strange+rites+tara+isabella+burton&qid=1565365017&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmr0www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

“I was fortunate to be able to be out in Hollywood in the 90s and to be able to work early on seminal LGBT-presenting shows like Tales of the City series, and Six Feet Under with Alan Ball. When it comes to Tokyo Vice, I did push hard for there to be a queer storyline because in the late 90s, in Japan, there was a huge thriving gay subculture. But it wasn't on the table to come out because your sexual orientation was considered irrelevant to your obligations to society.”Alan Poul is an Emmy, Golden Globe, DGA, and Peabody Award-winning producer and director of film and television. He is Executive Producer and Director on the Max Original drama series Tokyo Vice, written by Tony Award-winning playwright J.T. Rogers and starring Ansel Elgort and Ken Watanabe, as an American journalist in Japan and his police detective mentor. Poul is perhaps best known for producing all five seasons of HBO's Six Feet Under, all four of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City miniseries, My So-Called Life, The Newsroom, Swingtown, and The Eddy, which he developed with director Damien Chazelle. His feature film producing credits include Paul Schrader's Mishima and Light of Day, and Ridley Scott's Black Rain.https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0693561 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2887954/www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

What does learning another language and living in another culture do for your humanity and creative process?Alan Poul is an Emmy, Golden Globe, DGA, and Peabody Award-winning producer and director of film and television. He is Executive Producer and Director on the Max Original drama series Tokyo Vice, written by Tony Award-winning playwright J.T. Rogers and starring Ansel Elgort and Ken Watanabe, as an American journalist in Japan and his police detective mentor. Poul is perhaps best known for producing all five seasons of HBO's Six Feet Under, all four of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City miniseries, My So-Called Life, The Newsroom, Swingtown, and The Eddy, which he developed with director Damien Chazelle. His feature film producing credits include Paul Schrader's Mishima and Light of Day, and Ridley Scott's Black Rain.“I was fortunate to be able to be out in Hollywood in the 90s and to be able to work early on seminal LGBT-presenting shows like Tales of the City series, and Six Feet Under with Alan Ball. When it comes to Tokyo Vice, I did push hard for there to be a queer storyline because in the late 90s, in Japan, there was a huge thriving gay subculture. But it wasn't on the table to come out because your sexual orientation was considered irrelevant to your obligations to society.”https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0693561 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2887954/www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

“The legal system is a colonial legal system that is designed to preserve capitalist extraction and all the racial dynamics required to produce racial capitalism. The system is already completely captured by our opponents. And anything that looks like it's good for us is probably actually not. People don't get what they're supposed to get. It's undermined in several ways, or it can get flipped all the time. Like the law in the books is not happening on the streets. The police are not supposed to kill people all the time, and they just do. There is no rule of law. We live in lawless, brutal domination under a set of systems that are incredibly resilient and can reframe and sometimes be extra-legal, and that works out fine for them.” Dean Spade is an organizer, speaker, author, and professor at Seattle University's School of Law, where he teaches courses on policing, imprisonment, gender, race, and social movements. Spade has been organizing racial and economic movements for queer and trans liberation for the past 20 years. Spade's books include Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law and Mutual Aid, Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next). In 2002, Dean founded the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, a non-profit law collective that provides free legal services to transgender, intersex and gender non-conforming people who are low-income and/or people of color, and which operates on a collective governance model. His writing has appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Out, In These Times, Social Text, and Signs.www.deanspade.net www.southendpress.org/2010/items/87965www.deanspade.net/mutual-aid-building-solidarity-during-this-crisis-and-the-next/https://srlp.orgwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

 Dean Spade is an organizer, speaker, author, and professor at Seattle University's School of Law, where he teaches courses on policing, imprisonment, gender, race, and social movements. Spade has been organizing racial and economic movements for queer and trans liberation for the past 20 years. Spade's books include Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law and Mutual Aid, Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next). In 2002, Dean founded the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, a non-profit law collective that provides free legal services to transgender, intersex and gender non-conforming people who are low-income and/or people of color, and which operates on a collective governance model. His writing has appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Out, In These Times, Social Text, and Signs.“The legal system is a colonial legal system that is designed to preserve capitalist extraction and all the racial dynamics required to produce racial capitalism. The system is already completely captured by our opponents. And anything that looks like it's good for us is probably actually not. People don't get what they're supposed to get. It's undermined in several ways, or it can get flipped all the time. Like the law in the books is not happening on the streets. The police are not supposed to kill people all the time, and they just do. There is no rule of law. We live in lawless, brutal domination under a set of systems that are incredibly resilient and can reframe and sometimes be extra-legal, and that works out fine for them.”www.deanspade.net www.southendpress.org/2010/items/87965www.deanspade.net/mutual-aid-building-solidarity-during-this-crisis-and-the-next/https://srlp.orgwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu and Azeezah Kanji talk with Sara Ahmed about her new book, The Feminist Killjoy Handbook. How and why is it that complaining about sexism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of bigotry, is considered impolite? How is civility uncivil, and the mandate to be “happy” a tool for silencing grievances? Sara Ahmed tackles all those questions, and gives us strength and courage to keep on killingjoy and speaking truth.Sara Ahmed is an independent queer feminist scholar of colour. Her work is concerned with how power is experienced and challenged in everyday life and institutional cultures. Her first trade book, The Feminist Killjoy Handbook is coming out with Seal Press next month. Previous books (all published by Duke University Press) include Complaint! (2021), What's The Use? On the Uses of Use (2019), Living a Feminist Life (2017), Willful Subjects (2014), On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life (2012), The Promise of Happiness (2010) and Queer Phenomenology: Objects, Orientations, Others (2006). She is currently writing A Complainer’s Handbook: A Guide to Building Less Hostile Institutions and has begun a new project on common sense. She blogs at feministkilljoy.com."She often said I was the daughter she didn't have. And I was the daughter she had, in fact, because I'll say that to you. And I got a lot from her. She was very much willing always to speak her mind. And I would watch her tell my father off. It would be just like, yeah, this is possible! And she was outspoken, but also very loving. She's no longer with us. I never came out to her in the sense of saying 'I am a lesbian' or whatever, but I think she kind of knew. We had conversations, and I think she would have been okay with it. And because she was just a very, very curious and creative person and an enormous influence in my life."https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/454793/the-feminist-killjoy-handbook-by-ahmed-sara/9780241619537www.palumbo-liu.com https://speakingoutofplace.comhttps://twitter.com/palumboliu?s=20Photo credit: Sarah Franklin

"I think when the novel went through many revisions and reiterations, a lot of Richard de Zoysa's biography got shared, and Maali Almeida emerged as a character. But that one detail stayed, the fact that he was a closeted gay man. Again, you write by instinct, and also I had to explain why was this privileged Colombo kid, going to these very dangerous places and hanging out with very dodgy characters. So one reason was perhaps ego. He found something he was very good at, and he thought he was bearing witness and doing this great service.I think another reason - and also this idealism that he thought his photographs could change the world - but also I think as a closeted gay man, he could express himself sexually in the war zone. Normal rules didn't apply. And also I think this informed his world. He just believed in being a hedonist and enjoying his sexuality. And the only way he could do that was to go to these dangerous places where no one he knew would be watching.I don't know if I could revise it now and make him heterosexual and have the story work quite as well. So that was the reason. Since then I've been questioned because now that debate is alive and well: the cultural appropriation debate. Are we allowed to write novels from the perspective of characters of different sexualities, genders, and ethnicities?I think we are. I think that's the whole point of being a novelist or being a storyteller is that you are allowed to inhabit other consciousnesses and see the world through other points of view. Of course, you have to do it well. You have to do it with respect. You have to do the empathy. And you have to do it responsibly. I don't think we should be placing boundaries because otherwise, I have to write from a Sinhalese Buddhist, Sri Lankan, middle-aged dude...which is quite boring.I'd like to explore different characters if I'm allowed to write more. So that was really the thinking. It wasn't a political decision. It just felt right for the character, and in the end, it was true to who the character was. And in the end, I think with the plot as well, it gives the novel another dimension."What happens when we die? What happens to our memories and consciousness when our bodies cease to be?  In the end, is it the things we did and the people we loved that give our lives meaning?Shehan Karunatilaka is the multi-award winning author. He is known for his novels dealing with the history, politics, and folklore of his home country of Sri Lanka. He won the Commonwealth Book Prize and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature for his debut novel, Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew, and the Booker Prize 2022 for his second novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. In addition to novels, he has written rock songs, screenplays and travel stories. Born in Colombo, he studied in New Zealand and has lived and worked in London, Amsterdam, and Singapore.www.shehanwriter.comhttps://wwnorton.com/books/9781324064824www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

What happens when we die? What happens to our memories and consciousness when our bodies cease to be?  In the end, is it the things we did and the people we loved that give our lives meaning?Shehan Karunatilaka is the multi-award winning author. He is known for his novels dealing with the history, politics, and folklore of his home country of Sri Lanka. He won the Commonwealth Book Prize and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature for his debut novel, Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew, and the Booker Prize 2022 for his second novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. In addition to novels, he has written rock songs, screenplays and travel stories. Born in Colombo, he studied in New Zealand and has lived and worked in London, Amsterdam, and Singapore."I think when the novel went through many revisions and reiterations, a lot of Richard de Zoysa's biography got shared, and Maali Almeida emerged as a character. But that one detail stayed, the fact that he was a closeted gay man. Again, you write by instinct, and also I had to explain why was this privileged Colombo kid, going to these very dangerous places and hanging out with very dodgy characters. So one reason was perhaps ego. He found something he was very good at, and he thought he was bearing witness and doing this great service.I think another reason - and also this idealism that he thought his photographs could change the world - but also I think as a closeted gay man, he could express himself sexually in the war zone. Normal rules didn't apply. And also I think this informed his world. He just believed in being a hedonist and enjoying his sexuality. And the only way he could do that was to go to these dangerous places where no one he knew would be watching.I don't know if I could revise it now and make him heterosexual and have the story work quite as well. So that was the reason. Since then I've been questioned because now that debate is alive and well: the cultural appropriation debate. Are we allowed to write novels from the perspective of characters of different sexualities, genders, and ethnicities?I think we are. I think that's the whole point of being a novelist or being a storyteller is that you are allowed to inhabit other consciousnesses and see the world through other points of view. Of course, you have to do it well. You have to do it with respect. You have to do the empathy. And you have to do it responsibly. I don't think we should be placing boundaries because otherwise, I have to write from a Sinhalese Buddhist, Sri Lankan, middle-aged dude...which is quite boring.I'd like to explore different characters if I'm allowed to write more. So that was really the thinking. It wasn't a political decision. It just felt right for the character, and in the end, it was true to who the character was. And in the end, I think with the plot as well, it gives the novel another dimension."www.shehanwriter.comhttps://wwnorton.com/books/9781324064824www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastPhoto credit: David Parry/Booker Prize Foundation