Re-Creative: A podcast about inspiration and creativity

The lads are joined by writer, director, comic book artist and creator Christian Gossett. Christian is on the show to champion the groundbreaking Akira Kurosawa  film, Seven Samurai (1954). But first, because it's near the holidays, they discuss their favorite Christmas movies.  Christian got an early chance to design for the Star Wars universe Old Republic, and, as part of that process, created the double-bladed lightsaber. As he did this work, he did a deep dive into George Lucas's influences. One of those was Seven Samurai. The movie has had a huge influence on Christian's work. Christian is more than a fan of Kurosawa -- he's deeply engaged with the director's process and history and is knowledgeable about both. If you enjoy the Star Wars universe, the work of Kurosawa, and how those two worlds tie together, don't miss this episode! For more information, check out the show notes for this episode [https://re-creative.ca/seven-samurai/]. Re-Creative is produced by Donovan Street Press Inc. [https://www.donovanstreetpress.com/] in association with MonkeyJoy Press [https://markarayner.com/]. Contact us at joemahoney@donovanstreetpress.com

Spencer Evans is a working musician in Kingston, Ontario. He joins Mark and Joe to discuss the influence that Ray Charles had on him as piano player and entertainer, as well as the impact that Charles had on the history of music in America and the world. Spencer is an old pal of Mark's, back from their days at Queen's University (in Kingston, ON), when they were both members of the cabaret group, Queen's Players. "I know for a fact that Spencer can play the hell out of a Ray Charles song. And sing the hell out of it too!" Mark says of Spencer's choice of musical pick. "He embodies everything that music is to me. The passion, the artistry, the individuality, the fighting against chaos," Spencer says. He talks about how many facts of Ray Charles' early life were stacked against him, yet did not prevent him from becoming an incredibly influential figure in American music. For more information, check out the show notes for this episode. Re-Creative is produced by Donovan Street Press Inc. [https://www.donovanstreetpress.com/?srsltid=AfmBOoqQInulMwHwXcHNF1f7z0ipXFp56PqGNfuGS1Jai3QnzYJMVFcM] in association with MonkeyJoy Press [https://markarayner.com/monkeyjoy-press/]. Contact us at joemahoney@donovanstreetpress.com

Singer, podcaster and producer Lauren LoGrasso drops by to talk about one of her favorite pieces of music, Vienna, by Billy Joel. The song is having a bit of a renaissance for its age-positive message and it's had a huge influence on Lauren's own work in music. The Michigan State grad is a creative best known for her work as a singer/songwriter, public speaker, actor, and Webby Award Winning podcast host. She also interned on the Ellen DeGeneres show. The three have a great conversation about her work on some of Joe's favorite podcasts, she dispenses some advice for young podcasters, and shares her hopes for her music. For more information, check out the show notes for this episode. [https://re-creative.ca/billy-joels-vienna/] Re-Creative is produced by Donovan Street Press Inc. [https://www.donovanstreetpress.com/] in association with MonkeyJoy Press [https://markarayner.com/monkeyjoy-press/]. Contact us at joemahoney@donovanstreetpress.com

Joe and Mark are joined by Cathi Bond, Canadian writer, broadcaster and novelist. Joe and Cathi used to work together at the CBC, where Cathi was the "Video Diva." She had a great gig, watching movies and talking about them on air. Music is another huge passion in Cathi's life, and informs her choice of art. It's also an integral part of her writing process. She says her writing sessions often start with building a play list that she'd play while writing. Cathi is the author of the Woman of Good Standing Trilogy. It's a fun conversation about music, singing, and the joy of being creative! For more information, check out the show notes for this episode. [https://re-creative.ca/ruth-abernethy/] Re-Creative is produced by Donovan Street Press Inc. [https://www.donovanstreetpress.com/] in association with MonkeyJoy Press. [https://markarayner.com/monkeyjoy-press/] Contact us at joemahoney@donovanstreetpress.com

Ruth Abernethy, sculptor of some of the most iconic public art in Canada, joins the podcast to discuss her work. Ruth has been a sculptor for more than thirty years, documenting in bronze many quintessential Canadian figures, such as Glenn Gould, Oscar Peterson, and Margaret Atwood. Her connection to the theatre world goes quite deep. She began her career at Stratford, creating the sets and decorations that helps the festival bring Shakespeare to life. Her commissions can be found across Canada, including at Queen's Park, Ontario's legislature, where visitors can see her rendition of Queen Elisabeth II, near Queen Victoria. Mark, Joe and Ruth have a fascinating conversation about Ruth's work, her passion for creation, and her recent book. For fans of art, this is an episode not to be missed! For more information, check out the show notes for this episode. [https://re-creative.ca/ruth-abernethy/] Re-Creative is produced by Donovan Street Press Inc. [https://www.donovanstreetpress.com/] in association with MonkeyJoy Press. [https://markarayner.com/monkeyjoy-press/] Contact us at joemahoney@donovanstreetpress.com

Independent filmmaker Jen Prince joins Mark and Joe to discuss one of her favorite shows, Veronica Mars. As an indie filmmaker, Jen has had to wear a lot of different hats, including producer and director. She did acting in her undergrad, but soon discovered a talent for producing theatre. She then went to USC for film school, where she did a graduate degree. She's worked in television, including reality TV shows such as The Amazing Race. Eventually, she landed on producing indie movies and teaching when she's not making films. Jen picked Veronica Mars because of the strong female character. It's also a coming of age story, which Jen loves. She loved the cinematography. She loved the fact that it was a noir set in a high school and that it was coming of age story. She loved the acting, particularly Kristen Bell's, who came of age as an actor during the show. If you haven't watched Veronica Mars before hearing Jen, you'll want to after! For more information, check out the show notes for this episode. [https://re-creative.ca/veronica-mars/] Re-Creative is produced by Donovan Street Press Inc. [https://www.donovanstreetpress.com/] in association with MonkeyJoy Press [https://markarayner.com/monkeyjoy-press/]. Contact us at joemahoney@donovanstreetpress.com

Author Peter Darbyshire joins the lads to champion the classic Roger Zelazny fantasy series, The Chronicles of Amber. A writer of fantasy and literary fiction himself, Peter encountered the series when he was in elementary school. This is the second time that Zelazny has come up on the podcast. "For me, Roger Zelazny is one of the reasons I wanted to become a writer," says Peter. "It was coming across The Chronicles of Amber that changed everything that a book could be. They're the best noir-fantasy-scifi-horror-political-thriller-family-drama-literary-fiction-metaphysical-inquiry that I've read," Peter quips. For more information, check out the show notes for this episode. Re-Creative is produced by Donovan Street Press Inc. in association with MonkeyJoy Press. Contact us at joemahoney@donovanstreetpress.com

Joe and Mark are joined by Christopher Guerin, poet and music aficionado, who is on the podcast to champion the work of classical Indian musician Ravi Shankar. Christopher spent twenty-six years in the symphony orchestra business, including twenty as President of the Fort Wayne Philharmonic. After that he went on to work for Sweetwater ("the world's leading music technology and instrument retailer") as a VP. Since retiring, he's been putting his English degrees to work as a writer. He started out writing short stories and has become a poet, focused on ekphrastic sonnets. (In his case, poems that describe, or are influenced by, specific images.) The trio take a deep dive into the history and current state of poetry before discussing the music of Ravi Shankar. Shankar's sitar music was in the background as Christopher wrote his sonnet sequence, My Human Disguise. "Ravi Shankar's music is so overwhelmingly complex and free that when I have it in the background I can concentrate on the poems and rhymes in a way that I can't with any other music," Christopher explains. He's also a huge fan of Shankar's daughter, Anoushka, in particular a piece called Jannah. [clip below] "You can hear the same piece over and over again and you'll think it's brand new because of the complexity of the music," he says. Christopher makes a great case for authors to listen to raga while they write. For more information, check out the show notes for this episode. [https://re-creative.ca/ravi-shankar/] Re-Creative is produced by Donovan Street Press Inc. [https://www.donovanstreetpress.com/] in association with MonkeyJoy Press. [https://markarayner.com/monkeyjoy-press/] Contact us at joemahoney@donovanstreetpress.com

Joe and Mark are joined by Evan Gary Hirsch and Kip Baldwin, who make up the duo Soul Twin Messiah (STM). Evan Gary Hirsch, AKA The Blue Rocker, gets his aesthetic from his blue eyes and glitzy clothes. A California boy, he's into many different forms of music -- classic rock, new wave, punk and psychedelic rock. Kip Baldwin, AKA Oshalla, is a farm kid from Washington State, where his family raised racehorses. When he was young, he had an experience of infinity that changed his perspective on everything. He moved to the Bay area in 1985 specifically for a musical community. He spent a lot of years doing "hair metal" music, which was popular at the time. Evan jokes that Senator Bernie Sanders brought the two together. In 2016 he was looking for a producer to help him document his support of the politician and that's how Evan and Kip met. Both artists have a central message, which is the importance of love and selflessness. That informs their choice of media. Kip champions the classic John Lennon song Imagine (1971). Evan makes the case for why we should give Construction Time Again (1983) by Depeche Mode another listen. An inspiring and hopeful conversation! For more information, check out the show notes for this episode. [https://re-creative.ca/soul-twin-messiah/] Re-Creative is produced by Donovan Street Press Inc. [https://www.donovanstreetpress.com/] in association with MonkeyJoy Press. [https://markarayner.com/monkeyjoy-press/] Contact us at joemahoney@donovanstreetpress.com

Editor and writer Robert Runte joins Mark and Joe on the podcast to encourage everyone to read R. F. Kuang's satire of the publishing industry, Yellowface. Before they get into Yellowface, the lads discuss the nature of editing. "Most publishing houses work off the Chicago Manual of Style," Robert says, "mainly because it was the first style guide for books." Robert outlines how he approaches the art of editing with different writers. He loves R. F. Kuang's Yellowface, and recommends that everyone listen to the audiobook version of the novel because the actor, Helen Glazer, picks up all the subtleties of the story. Robert says the Glazer does such a good job of showing you the narrator's point of view that she gets the reader through the most cringe-inducing and tough bits of satire. He says, "If you're a writer or you want to be a writer, you HAVE to read this book!" A fun read and a fun conversation! For more information, check out the show notes for this episode. Re-Creative is produced by Donovan Street Press Inc. [https://www.donovanstreetpress.com/] in association with MonkeyJoy Press. [https://markarayner.com/monkeyjoy-press/] Contact us at joemahoney@donovanstreetpress.com

Joe and Mark invite Tony Schwartz, a veteran freelance first assistant director and line producer for film and television, to make the case for why everyone should watch The Wire. Tony worked on two of Joe and Mark's favorite shows: Freaks and Geeks and the cult favorite, Firefly, and talks about the heartbreak of working on such fabulous shows only to have them succumb to the whims of how the industry sometimes works. Tony goes on to make a compelling case for watching his favourite show The Wire, which first aired in 2002. "It has often been described as the greatest show that nobody saw," he says.    Tony makes his case so well that Mark wound up buying the complete DVD collection while they were still recording this episode! For more information, check out the show notes for this episode.  Re-Creative is produced by Donovan Street Press Inc. [https://www.donovanstreetpress.com/] in association with MonkeyJoy Press. [https://markarayner.com/monkeyjoy-press/]  Contact us at joemahoney@donovanstreetpress.com

Canadian science fiction writer Hugh A. D. Spencer joins the lads to talk about one of his favorite bits of audio – the original radio play of The War of the Worlds. The novel by H. G. Wells was written in the 1890s, and adapted by Orson Welles for his Mercury Theatre in 1938. Howard Koch adapted the story for the radio. Koch used the trope of the news flash to tell the story, and this led many listeners who had missed the start of the radio play to think the invasion was real. It caused a panic. Joe, Mark and Hugh have a great time talking about the effects of the radio play, science fiction in general, and the impact of the play on Hugh's own work. For more information, check out the show notes for this episode. [https://re-creative.ca/war-of-the-worlds/]  Re-Creative is produced by Donovan Street Press Inc. [https://www.donovanstreetpress.com/] in association with MonkeyJoy Press [https://markarayner.com/monkeyjoy-press/].  Contact us at joemahoney@donovanstreetpress.com

Blair is a working stage, screen and voice actor and the president of ACTRA Alberta, the acting union for screen and voice performers. He shares with hosts Joe and Mark some fun acting stories and how various actors pursue their art before talking about the play that still inspires him, Little Shop of Horrors. Blair got to see the show at the age of 17 on the West End. That version starred Ellen Greene, the original Audrey on Broadway. (She also plays the character in the 1986 movie version of the show.) Blair loved the characters, the songs, the puppet that is the alien, and the chorus, which sings do-wop songs. At the end of the show, tentacles dropped from the ceiling into the audience. The whole thing blew his mind. "This is what I want to do," Blair said after seeing the show. For pure fun and laughs, this is an episode not to be missed! For more information, check out the show notes for this episode. [https://re-creative.ca/little-shop-of-horrors/]  Re-Creative is produced by Donovan Street Press Inc [https://www.donovanstreetpress.com/]. in association with MonkeyJoy Press. [https://markarayner.com/]  Contact us at joemahoney@donovanstreetpress.com

Joe and Mark are joined by the famed cyberpunk author Bruce Sterling, from his studio in Torino (Turin), Italy. "I don't like doing the same thing over," Bruce says. "So, I don't write trilogies or sequels. I'm writing a lot of short fiction. I do some lecturing and consulting. I'm also the art director of an arts festival here in Turin, which is called Share Festival." One of Bruce's projects is to re-create a working model of The Versifier, which was originally a 1959 short story by Primo Levi. In the story, a poet is offered the chance to produce more poetry faster with a machine AI. Bruce is assembling a polystyrene model which is the first step to creating a working replica. What follows is a deep and fascinating conversation that also digs into the work of kinetic sculptor Alexander Calder, AI technology, and the human need to create art. For more information, check out the show notes for this episode. [https://re-creative.ca/the-versifier/]  Re-Creative is produced by Donovan Street Press Inc. [https://www.donovanstreetpress.com/] in association with MonkeyJoy Press. [https://markarayner.com/monkeyjoy-press/]  Contact us at joemahoney@donovanstreetpress.com

Mark and Joe are joined by writer and poet Abigail Grimes to discuss the classic Ray Bradbury novel Fahrenheit 451. Fahrenheit 451, as perhaps you know, is a warning about the dangers of totalitarian thinking and censorship. "One of the criticisms about the book is the writing is so beautiful that it's hard to take it seriously," Abigail tells us. The gorgeous prose helps the reader get past the worst parts of horror in the book, she says. Abigail makes a great case for why you should read Fahrenheit 451, if you haven't already. It's a fun conversation about the 1950s, how Bradbury wrote the book, and about the writer himself. We hope you'll listen in! For more information, check out the show notes for this episode [https://re-creative.ca/fahrenheit-451/].  Re-Creative is produced by Donovan Street Press Inc. [https://www.donovanstreetpress.com/] in association with MonkeyJoy Press. [https://markarayner.com/monkeyjoy-press/]  Contact us at joemahoney@donovanstreetpress.com

Author and critic Michael Antman joins Joe and Mark for a wide-ranging discussion about visual arts and writing. Michael started out as a poet. After switching to fiction, he's had two novels published by indie presses: Cherry Whip and Everything Solid Has A Shadow. He likes to explore themes of self-knowledge in his work, or, more accurately, "the lack of self-knowledge." The best surrealism combines common elements of the world with the feelings we have inside our dreams. Surrealism is unexpected but never absurd, Michael says. "It makes tremendous psychological sense at a deep level." At the age of twelve, visiting the Art Institute of Chicago, Michael first encountered the work of René Magritte. "It blew the top of my head off!" he relates.  For more information, please check out the show notes for this episode.  [https://re-creative.ca/rene-magritte/] Re-Creative is produced by Donovan Street Press Inc. [https://www.donovanstreetpress.com/] in association with MonkeyJoy Press [https://markarayner.com/monkeyjoy-press/].  Contact us at contact@donovanstreetpress.com

Mark and Joe are thrilled to welcome Catherine Fitzsimmons to the show. Catherine is the founder of Brain Lag, an acclaimed Canadian science fiction and fantasy press that has now published fifty books! Catherine is also a writer, with six novels under her belt, and an artist in other ways. She explains how the press came to be and the role it plays in Canadian publishing. She's the first guest to discuss early-to-mid-nineties Nintendo-style games. The three discuss the differences between video games, fiction and other narratives such as television. This leads into how Catherine got into music and other forms of art, and how it feeds everything she does. For more information, check out the show notes for this episode. [https://re-creative.ca/chrono-trigger/]  Re-Creative is produced by Donovan Street Press Inc. [https://www.donovanstreetpress.com/] in association with MonkeyJoy Press [https://markarayner.com/monkeyjoy-press/].  Contact us at contact@donovanstreetpress.com

Mark and Joe chat with the Canadian poet and science fiction doyenne, Candas Jane Dorsey. Candas is well-known in Canadian science fiction circles for her work as a novelist (Black Wine, A Paradigm of Earth) and editor-in-chief of The Books Collective, which included River, Slipstream and Tesseract Books. The conversation begins around one of Candas's favourite childhood fantasy books, Crab Village by Julia Clark. (We all have one of those, right?). "I reread this book about every decade, and it holds up really well," she says.  What follows is a fascinating conversation about how we discover books, how children engage with literature, and the incredible effects that can have on the unfolding of a creative life. For more information, check out the show notes for this episode. [https://re-creative.ca/native-son/] Re-Creative is produced by Donovan Street Press Inc [https://www.donovanstreetpress.com/]. in association with MonkeyJoy Press. [https://markarayner.com/] Drop us a line at contact@donovanstreetpress.com to tell us what you think of this episode... or any other.

Ben Fox is founder of the amazing book discovery site Shepherd. [https://shepherd.com/]  Joe and Mark talk to Ben about a book that had a huge impact on him. Native Son, by Richard Wright, was assigned to Ben as a senior in high school. "I hated it from the depths of my soul, but now this book is strongly in my DNA," Ben says. He doesn't hate the story now, though it does haunt him. It's one of the top fifteen books he would recommend. Don't miss this great conversation about systematic racism, reading and Ben's pet project, the book discovery site Shepherd! For more information, check out the show notes for this episode. [https://re-creative.ca/native-son/]  Re-Creative is produced by Donovan Street Press Inc [https://www.donovanstreetpress.com/]. in association with MonkeyJoy Press. [https://markarayner.com/]  Drop us a line at contact@donovanstreetpress.com to tell us what you think of this episode... or any other.

"If you could write – and consume – only one of these genres of science fiction, what would you pick? Space opera. Post-Apocalyptic. Or Cyberpunk?" This is the diabolical question that Mark poses to Joe and their guest, renowned Canadian science fiction writer, Robert J. Sawyer.  Everyone has an answer and it connects with the piece of art that Rob has chosen to talk about – the 1968 science fiction classic, Planet of the Apes. For Rob, the film (and book it was based upon) shows how science fiction can tackle the most pressing and important issues of the day. In the case of Planet of the Apes: race relations and nuclear war. Mark, Joe and Rob have an engaged and engaging conversation about Planet of the Apes, science fiction in general, and Rob's career in particular.  Fans won't want to miss this conversation! For more information, check out the show notes for this episode.  [https://re-creative.ca/planet-of-the-apes/] Re-Creative is produced by Donovan Street Press Inc. [https://www.joemahoney.ca/] in association with MonkeyJoy Press. [https://markarayner.com/]  Contact us at joemahoney@donovanstreetpress.com