Creativity is Creativity is Creativity: Working Creatives Discuss Creative Thinking

PANELISTS: Karleen Koen (M), Dr. Tony Medina, Kay Sarver, Adam Castaneda, Kendra Preston Leonard, Karen Celestan

TIME: Saturday, January 23rd, 4:00 - 5:30 PM, with short reception to follow

PRICE: $10 - $50 (pay what you can)

LOCATION: Online via Zoom

What does it mean to be creative? Is creativity come naturally or do you have to work at it? How important is it in your writing? Five working creatives--a musician, a dancer, a poet, a non-fiction writer, and a visual artist--gather to talk about their process, their triumphs, their struggles, and the ways that they use creativity and it uses them. Famed author Margaret Atwood says the biggest misconception about creativity is to think only geniuses have it. At Writespace, we completely agree. Join us to listen and be inspired about your own.

About the Moderator:

Karleen Koen is the author of four novels, her first, Through A Glass Darkly, a New York Times bestseller. She is an award-winning magazine editor and writer/editor as well as an experienced facilitator of writing and creativity. She is cofounder of the nonprofit Women in the Visual & Literary Arts.

About the Panelists

Tony Medina is a poet, graphic novelist, editor, author, and the first Professor of Creative Writing at Howard University. The author/editor of 21 books for adults and young people, including Death, with Occasional Smiling, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Boy, I Am Alfonso Jones and Resisting Arrest: Poems to Stretch the Sky, his poetry, fiction, and essays appear in over 100 anthologies and literary journals. Medina’s awards include the Paterson Prize for Books for Young People, the Langston Hughes Society Award, the first African Voices Literary Award, the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award honor, and Special Recognition from the Arnold Adoff Poetry Award.

Kay Sarver is a Houston-based visual artist, blogger, and host of Houston Art Tribe on Youtube.

Adam Castañeda is a dancer, writer, and arts administrator living in Houston, Texas. He is the Executive and Artistic Director of the Pilot Dance Project, and his programming has been funded by the Mid-America Arts Alliance, City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance, Houston Endowment, Texas Commission on the Arts, EmcArts, the Morales Foundation, HoustonFirst, the Midtown Management District, Bunnies on the Bayou, and Dance Source Houston. Through his non-profit, he produces a full season of professional Modern dance as well as the annual Houston Fringe Festival.

Kendra Preston Leonard is a writer and editor whose work includes poetry, song lyrics, opera libretti, and academic studies. Inspired by history, place, and myth, her poetry has appeared in numerous venues including lunch, vox poetica, and The Shakespeare Multiverse. Her chapbook Making Mythology is published by Louisiana Literature Press.

Karen Celestan is a cultural writer and author of Freedom’s Dance: Social, Aid and Pleasure Clubs in New Orleans.