# Creative Confidence, Portfolio Careers, And Making Without Permission with Alicia Jo Rabins ## Метаданные - **Канал:** The Creative Penn - **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skrvbo39h2o - **Дата:** 02.03.2026 - **Длительность:** 55:35 - **Просмотры:** 494 - **Источник:** https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/18198 ## Описание How do you build a creative life that spans music, writing, film, and spiritual practice? Alicia Jo Rabins talks about weaving multiple creative strands into a sustainable career and why the best advice for any creator might simply be: just make the thing. In the intro, backlist promotion strategy [Written Word Media (https://www.writtenwordmedia.com/backlist-author-sales-how-to-sell-more-books/) ]; Successful author business [Novel Marketing Podcast (https://www.authormedia.com/how-to-become-a-professional-writer-with-joanna-penn/) ]; Alliance of Independent Authors Indie Author Bookstore (https://bookstore.allianceindependentauthors.org/) ; Bones of the Deep (https://www.jfpenn.com/bones) – J.F. Penn This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life (https://www.thecreativepenn.com/kwl) , which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast (http://kobowritinglife.com/category/kwl-po ## Транскрипт ### Segment 1 (00:00 - 05:00) [] Welcome to the Creative Pen podcast. I'm Joanna Penn, thriller author and creative entrepreneur, bringing you interviews, inspiration, and information on writing, craft, and creative business. You can find the episode show notes, your free author blueprint, and lots more at the creativepen. com. And that's pen with a double n. And here's the show. Hello creatives. I'm Joanna Penn and this is episode number 852 of the podcast and it is Monday the 2nd of March 2026 as I record this. It is officially spring here in the southwest of England as the daffodils and the crocuses are out and the blackthorn is flowering and I just put some pictures on my Instagram @ JFPOAR of the crocuses around my green man stone carving in my garden. The winter has turned once more and there's a lot happening in the world. All the big things that are overwhelming and difficult, but we can find joy in the little things. And for me, the first crocuses of spring are part of that joy. So anyway, in today's show, I'm talking with Alicia Joe Rabins about creative confidence, portfolio careers, and making without permission. Alicia is such an inspirational, multi-passionate creative who works with music and song and books and film to weave a really interesting career with some very big projects. So that's coming up in the interview section in writing and publishing. Well, Written Word Media has a great article about backlist strategy. How to sell more books from your backlist. Now, if you are a newer author, the backlist is basically everything you're not actively promoting right now, which is usually your front list, the books that have just come out or are coming out soon. So, for those of us who've been writing for years, we have lots of books in the back list, and that keeps growing. It's also a well-known fact in the industry that the bulk of sales over time and the bulk of revenue comes from the backlist. So, even if you make spikes from new book sales, the backlist keeps earning and that can make more money than the new book. One example being my Spear of Destiny, which was my book 13 of my Arcane Thriller series, which came out last year. And I did the Kickstarter, which was for the front list. So, the front list was the newest book, but I also sold lots of bundles of the entire backlist in print, ebook, and audio. and I've been writing that series [snorts] basically since 2008. And so when we promote book one in a long series, that is also backlist promotion. So when you start out, you always focus on that first book, you're like, "Oh, it needs to go gang busters. " But the reality of the author business is that after time passes and you write more and you grow readership and income and sales and more books and the backlist is very valuable. So into the article itself from written word media which starts with economics. So when you add more books especially connected books that naturally lead from one to the next you create the conditions for read through which is one of the strongest drivers of stable author sales. And more does not only mean more novels in a series it can also mean more books standalone. So, for example, with my non-fiction books, they're not technically a series, but I group them in a series of craft books and business books, so that they're linked and you can find them, but they can all be read in whatever order you like. You can also have more formats, new editions, so special editions or omnibus. You can do companion products like workbooks and maps and law guides and all of that. The principle is straightforward. More ways to buy increases revenue per reader and that changes the economics of marketing. And this is so important. So how much money can one reader spend with you? Even if they are your biggest fan and they think your book is the most amazing book in the whole world, if you only have one book, they can only spend as much of one book. So in an ebook format, you're not going to get very much money per reader. So if a reader discovers you and buys everything you currently offer, what is the total value? That is your maximum catalog value. This is all from the written word media article. So marketing is not spend money, get money. Marketing is spend money to acquire a reader and then earn from that reader over time. Hopefully if they love your books, they can buy more. So, if they can only buy one, then every promotion and ad is risky because there's no further purchases to help recoup the investment. So, hopefully that helps you understand ### Segment 2 (05:00 - 10:00) [5:00] why the backlist is so important. And also, this is why many of us say if you only have one book, don't go super nutso on spending money on marketing because it's very unlikely to break even. Readers also need time. So even if you do promote that first book, obviously someone maybe somebody buys it or downloads it. It takes time to read, to finish it, to decide to buy the next in the series. So think about other metrics. Are you gaining new readers? Is your email list growing? Are later titles moving in the weeks after promotion? Are you getting reviews? So a great article on backlist author sales from written word media. Then I'm on the novel marketing podcast this week talking about author business along with Thomas Umstat Jr. and I always enjoy talking to Thomas. We have a lot of differences culturally and in our worldviews but we agree on a lot of author things and it's so important to engage with people who you don't align with on everything especially at this time in the world. We also genuinely get on. So we had a great chat and quite a lot of laughing. So if you want to hear us laughing and talking about business and marketing, we also talk about life stages. So when you might make different decisions around being more professional with your writing. When is it worth it just being a hobby? being a business? Should you build a long-term brand or use short-term pen names? When Kickstarter might work, when you should just simplify and go with Amazon only or when going wide and selling direct is worthwhile. creative constraints, using AI to help you with a business plan or acting as a co-CEO, doing data analysis, and more. So, that is over on the novel marketing podcast wherever you're listening to this. And the other thing, talking of kind of selling wide, selling direct, and reaching more readers, the Alliance of Independent Authors has launched the Indie Author Bookstore, which has lots of books from indie authors in one place. So, if you want to support more indie authors, you can go to bookstore. allianceindependentauthors. org and you'll find lots of indie books there. It is an online discoverability platform designed to help readers discover the quality and variety of thousands of books published by independent authors across so many genres. All the books are by members of the alliance of independent authors and each of the purchase links can go to links that they choose. So that might be a major retailer or direct to their own website. So if you are a member of the Alliance of Independent Authors, you can load yours up too. I need to do mine another thing on my list. But yes, go to bookstore. allianceindependentauthors. org. Links in the show notes as ever. In personal news, so Jane, my designer, and I, we finished the design for Bones of the Deep, the special edition. And so I've ordered the proofs from Book Vault. And I also ordered the paperback and the large print, which have arrived, which are fantastic. But the custom one will obviously take longer. But I always love to hold my new books in my hands and say I made these. So really pleased about that. I've also started working on the audio book on 11 Labs with my voice clone. I'm still thinking about probably after Easter for the launch, but yeah, who knows? But jfpen. com/bones if you want to read more. I've also been doing lots of Claude code experimenting with translation, which has been really interesting. So, more on that once I have experiments to report back on. So, thanks for all your emails and comments and photos this week. Saskia says, "Thanks to you and Jack for this episode. When I saw the content line, it wasn't sure it had much for me, but I listened and my experience is that all your podcast episodes have something for me. I found so much in it that resonated. Independence as both a strength and a weakness, the need for a creative approach to marketing, dealing with change. I found Jack a very thoughtful speaker. I listened walking through the water meadows just across the river from my house with a fabulous view of a small Norman church, but I was so absorbed I forgot to take a picture. Thank you, Saskia. And Ben left a comment on the show notes for Jack's episode. I had to stop and leave a comment because last week I came across this idea that nostalgia is actually a form of grief. And just paraphrasing this, a lot of the anti-AI feelings are grief and nostalgia for a world that doesn't exist anymore. We are definitely living at the crossroads where business meets the starving artist mentality. And those two ways of thinking are like oil and water. All this to say, I understand the frustration in your voice when you're ### Segment 3 (10:00 - 15:00) [10:00] talking about seeing the storm six years ago and trying to warn people and nobody paying attention. Thanks so much, Ben. And Steve says, "Listening on a walk on Bllythe Beach in North Thland. Already added Surface Detail, which was one of the books I recommended to my pile and signed ebooks to my list of things to look into. " And that's just the introduction. Overwhelmed face emoji and lovely picture, gorgeous stony beach, huge sky. I love North Sumberland and we often talk about moving there at some point. You never know, it might happen. Julie said, "I eagerly await the podcast every Monday here in Virginia, home to many interesting cemeteries. While visiting Bowurt, North Carolina, maybe you call that Bufort, I found the old burial, the old burying ground. I'm sharing a photo of the grave of a British officer not wanting to be buried with his boots off. He was buried standing in full uniform facing east towards England. Beautiful white boards of that church as well. And Robin sent a picture of her dog Otto watching the sunset the other day across a snowy forest and commented on Kevin's interview that it's good to revisit the idea that we can't replicate the success or luck of others and we shouldn't try. We should focus on what is possible for us at whatever stage we're at in our author career. Okay? So, please leave a comment on the podcast show notes at the creativepen. com or on the YouTube channel. You can email me, send me pictures of where you're listening or your favorite cemetery or churchyard. Joanna@thecreativepen. com. I love to hear from you. It makes this more of a conversation. So today's show is sponsored by Coobo Writing Life, the self-publishing platform built by authors for authors. KWL is dedicated to empowering your author career and helping you connect with readers worldwide. Ready to amplify your book's reach and boost sales? Coobo Writing Life offers a powerful suite of promotional tools designed to put your books directly in front of eager readers. Leverage strategic percent off sales, buy more, save more bundles, and prime homepage placements to drive discovery. On a personal note, I go into KWL every few weeks and apply for every promotion I can. Now, I won't get all of them, but I get some of them. And talking of backlist, bundles do really well in coobo promotions and they also have opportunities for books in translation. They have partnerships with many independent stores in different countries. So if you want to go wide with translation, check out Coobo as well. Start promoting on Coobo today at thecreativepen. com/kwl. And that page is a landing page with all my books on coobo and ebook and audio and useful episodes of the coobo writing life podcast which you can also listen to wherever you're listening to this. Thanks to the seven new patrons who've joined over the last week and thanks to everyone who's been supporting for months and years. If you join the community, you get access to all my backlist videos and audio covering topics on writing craft, author business, and AI tutorials. This week, I posted an article about how you need to revisit how AI tools can help your business workflow, going beyond basic chat to using projects, skills, co-work, claude code, and more for your author business tasks. And we'll talk about that more in our live office hours this week. Come along if you're a patron and I'll show you what I've been doing. The Patreon is a monthly subscription, the equivalent of buying me a black coffee a month or a couple of coffees if you're feeling generous. So, if you get value from the show and you want more, come on over and join us at patreon. com p a t r e o n. com/thecreative pen. Right, let's get into the interview. Alicia Joe Rabbins is an award-winning writer, musician, performer, as well as a Torah teacher, and ritualist. She's the creator of Girls in Trouble, a feminist indie folk song cycle about biblical women, and the award-winning film Akadish for Bernie Maidoff. Her latest book is a memoir, When We're Born, We Forget Everything. So, welcome to the show, Alicia. — Thank you so much. I'm delighted to be here. Oh yes, there is so much we could talk about, but first up, tell us a bit more about you and how you've woven so many strands of creativity into your life and career. — Yes. Well, I am a maximalist and what happened in terms of my early life is that I started writing on my own just extremely young. I'm just one of those people who always loved writing, always processed the world and kind of managed my emotions and came to understand myself through writing. So from a very young age I felt really ### Segment 4 (15:00 - 20:00) [15:00] committed to writing and then I had the good fortune that my mother saw a talk show about the Suzuki method of uh learning violin when you start really young and learn by ear which is modeled after language learning actually. So much less intellectual and much more kind of instinctual learning by copying. And so she was like that looks like a cool thing. and I was 3 years old at the time and she found out that there was a little local branch of our music conservatory that had a Suzuki violin program. So when I was three and a half getting coming close to four, she took me down and I started playing an extremely tiny violin um and because it was Yeah. part of this um conservatory that was downtown and we were just kind of starting at the suburban branch where we lived, there was sort of this path that I was able to follow where as I got more and more interested in violin, I could continue basically up through the conservatory level in some ways at um during high school. So I had a really fantastic music education without any pressure, without any kind of expectations or professional goals. But I just kind of kept taking these classes and one thing led to another. And so in that way, you know, I sort of grew up being very immersed in both creative writing and music. And I think just having the gift of those two parts of my brain trained and stimulated and delighted so young really I think changed my brain in some ways. And I'll always see the world through this creative lens which I think I'm also just set up to do personally. And then the last step of my kind of multi-practice career is that then in college I got very interested in Jewish spirituality. I'm Jewish but I didn't grow up very religious. in a Jewish community really. So I knew some basics but not a ton. And in college I started to study it and also informally kind of learn from other people I met. And I ended up going on like a pretty intense spiritual quest and going to Jerusalem and immersing myself after college for two years in traditional Jewish study and practice. So that kind of became the third strand of the braid that had already been started with music and writing. And so Torah study, spiritual study, and teaching became the third. And they all interweave. And the last thing I'll say is that just because I work in both words and music and so naturally performance because of music then it began to kind of branch a little bit into plays, theater and film just because that's where the intersection of words performance and music are. So that's really what brought me into that as opposed to any kind of specific desire to work in film. It all happened very organically. — I love this. This is so cool and I do we are going to circle back to a lot of this but I have to ask you so was there what about work for money at any point like how did this kind of come into it as more than just hobbies and lifestyle? — Yes, absolutely. Well, I'm very fortunate that I did not graduate college with loans because my parents were able to pay for college. That was a big privilege that I just want to name because in the states that's often not the case. So that allowed me to need to support myself but not also pay loans which was a real gift. And so let's see what happened was I went straight from college to that school in Jerusalem. And so that there I was on loans and scholarship and so I didn't have to worry yet about supporting myself. And then when I came back to the States I actually found on Craigslist a job teaching remedial Hebrew was what it was listed as. And it was essentially teaching kids at a Jewish elementary school who either had learning differences or had just entered the school late and needed to be in a different Hebrew class than the other kids in their grade. And that was my first experience of really teaching and I just absolutely fell in love with it. Although in the end my passion is much more for teaching the texts and rituals and the kind of wrestling with the concepts as opposed to teaching language. So all these years while doing you know performance and writing all these things I have been teaching Jewish studies and that has essentially supported me I would say between 50 and 70% and then the rest has been paid gigs as a musician whether as a front person you know leading a project or as what we call a sideman kind of playing in someone else's band sometimes doing theater performances sometimes teaching workshops so that that's how I've sort of cobbled it together. I have not had a full-time job all these years and I have supported myself through both earned income and also grants and donations. So, I've really tried to cultivate a little bit of a donor base and I took some workshops early on about how to welcome donations. So, I definitely try to always welcome that as well. — That is so interesting that you took a workshop on how to welcome donations. ### Segment 5 (20:00 - 25:00) [20:00] And I would say that because like way back in and I think 2013, I said on this show, I just don't know if I can accept like people giving to support the show. And then someone on the podcast challenged me and said, but people want to support creatives. And that's when I started Patreon in 2014. And it was kind of when The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer — Palmer. Yeah. — Yeah. Came out. And it was this sort of realization that people do want to support people. So I love that you said that — it's not easy. It's still not easy for me. And I have to kind of grit my teeth every time that I even put in my, you know, end of year newsletter. I just say just a reminder that part of what makes this possible is your generous donations. And I'm so grateful to you. And you know, it's not easy. I think some people enjoy fundraising and I certainly I don't instinctively enjoy it, but I have learned to think of it exactly the way that you're saying, which is I mean I love donating to support other people's projects and it sometimes it's the highlight of my day if I'm having a bad day and someone asks for help either, you know, to feed a family or to complete a creative project and I just feel like, okay, at least I can give $36 or $25 and feel like I I did something positive in the last hour even if my project is going terribly and I'm in a fight with my kid or something. So I have to keep in mind that like it is actually a privilege to give as well as a privilege to receive. — Absolutely. Right. So let's get back into your various creative projects. So the first thing I wanted to ask you because you do have so many different form formats I guess and forms of your creativity. So, how do you know when an idea that comes to you should be a song or something you want to do as a performance or written or a film or whatever? So, tell us a bit about your creative process because a lot of your projects are also long longer term. — Yeah, you know, I'm not much of a It's funny. I love planning and in some ways I'm an extreme planner. Like I really drive people in my family bonkers with planning like family vacations a year in advance. But in terms of my creativity, um, I'm very planful towards goals, but in that early generative state, I'm actually pure instinct. So, I don't think I ever sit down and say, I have this idea, which genre would it match with. It's more like I sit on my bed and pick up my guitar, which is where I love to do songwriting, just sitting on my bed cross-legged, and I pick up my guitar and something starts coming out, and then I just work with that kernel. So, it's very nebulous at first, very inco. And I just kind of follow that creative spirit. And often I don't even know what a project is sometimes if it's a larger project until a year or two in. So once things kind of emerge and take shape, then my planning brain and my strategy brain can jump on it and say, "Okay, we need three more songs to fill out the album and we need to plan the fundraising and the scheduling. " And then I might take more of a kind of outside in approach. But yeah, at the beginning it's just all instinct. — So if you pick up your guitar, does that mean it always starts in music and then say goes into writing or is that you only pick up a guitar if it's going to be musical? I think I'm responding to like what what's inside me on like it's almost like a need as opposed to like I'm going to sit down and work. I mean, obviously I sit down and work a lot, but I think in that early stage of anything, it's more like, oh, my fingers are itching to play something and so I sit down and pick up my guitar and may sometimes nothing comes out and sometimes the kernel of a song comes out or I'm at a cafe and I'm just I often like to write when I'm feeling a little bit like discombobulated, you know, just to sort of like go into the complexity of things or just use challenging emotions as fuel. I really do use it also as just sort of a I don't know if therapeutic is the word but I think it maybe is like I write often to as I always have as I said before to understand what I'm thinking like Joan Ddian said to process difficult emotions to let go of stuck places. So, I think I create almost more out of a sense of just what I need in the moment. And sometimes it's just for fun. Like sometimes, you know, picking up a guitar, I just kind of like have a moment. So, I just sit down and mess around. And sometimes it's to help me struggle with something. Yeah. So, it doesn't always start in music. That was a random example. But, I might sit down to write because I have an hour and I think, you know, I haven't written in a while. or I do have a kind of daily informal daily writing thing where I'll try to generate one loose draft of something a day, even if it's only 10 pages. And um I mean, sorry, 10 words. — I was going to say, — no, 10 words. I'm sorry. It's often poetry, so it feels like ### Segment 6 (25:00 - 30:00) [25:00] a lot when it's 10 words. And so I'll just sit down with no pressure, no goal, no no intention to make anything specific. Just kind of open the floodgates and see what comes out. And that's where every single project of mine has started. — Yeah, I do love that. And I mean, I've talked before obviously I'm a discovery writer and intuitive same as you. I think very much this sort of especially you said when you feel like discombobulated that's when you'll write and I almost feel like I need that like I'm not someone who writes every day. I don't do 10 lines or whatever. is that I will I'll feel that sense of pressure like building up like this is going to be something and I will really only write or journal when that sort of spills over into I now need to write and figure out like what this is. — Yes. Yeah. It's almost a form of hunger. I mean it feels to me similar to like you know you eat a great meal and then you're good for a while. you're not really thinking of it and then it builds up like you said and then there's like a need and so it feels much less to me in some ways like a at least the first half of creativity I really separate my generation and my editing so my generative practice is all openness no critique just kind of this you know maybe therapeutic maybe curious just wandering and seeing what happens and then once I have a draft my you know incisive editing mind is welcome back in which has been kind of shut out from that early process and that's a really different experience but those early stages of creativity are yeah almost out of need more than obligation. — Yeah. Well just staying with that generative practice as well. Obviously you mentioned your study of and practice of Jewish tradition and Jewish spirituality as well. And I wondered because Steven Presfield in his books has talked about his prayer to the muse. And I've got on my wall here I don't talk about this very often actually. I have a muse picture painting of I guess I think of her as like a muse spirit in some form. And so do you have any spiritual practices around your generative practice and that phase of coming up with ideas? — I love that question and I wish I had like a beautiful intentional answer and my answer is no. I think I experience creativity as its own spiritual practice itself. And I do actually love individual prayer and meditation and things like that. But for me, those are more to address kind of my specifically spiritual health and happiness and connectedness. And to me, I just am a divein kind of person. Even, you know, I as a musician, I have friends who have elaborate backstage rituals and I'm always just kind I have to do certain things to take care of my voice, but even that it's mostly vocal rest as opposed to actively doing things. And I I'm just sort of like there's a bit of an on-off switch for me. Yeah, [snorts] that's interesting. Well, then I do want to ask you about one of your projects, which is this collaboration with a high school on a musical performance, I was a desert, songs of the matriarchs. And also you've got this girls in trouble songs about women in the Torah. And on your website I had a look at this the school the high school and the musical performance. It was extraordinary. I mean it was just amazing. I was sort of watching you and the school there and this is just extraordinary work and it very much in inspired me not to do it myself but it was like it was just so wonderful. I do urge people to go to your website and just watch a few minutes of it. And you know, I'm inspired by elements of religion, Christian and Jewish, but I wondered if you've come up against any sort of issues with adaptation, sort of respecting your heritage, but also reinventing it. Like, how has this gone for you? And any advice for people who want to incorporate aspects of religion they love, but are worried about responses? Well, I have to say coming from the Jewish tradition, that is a core practice of Judaism is reinterpreting our texts and traditions, wrestling with them, arguing with them, reimagining them. I don't know if you're familiar with Midrash, but just in case some of your readers aren't or you aren't, there's essentially an ancient form of fanfic called Midash, which was the ancient rabbis, and we still do it today. Taking a biblical story that seems to have some kind of gap or inconsistency or question in it and writing a story to fill that gap or to sort of recast the story in an interestingly different light. And so we have this whole body of literature over thousands of years that are these sort of alternate or added on adventures, side quests of the biblical characters. So what I'm doing from a Jewish perspective is very much in line with actually a traditional way of interacting with text. So I've certainly never gotten any push back in especially I work in progressive Jewish communities. So I think if I were in an ### Segment 7 (30:00 - 35:00) [30:00] you know extremely fundamentalist community that there would be a lot of different issues around gender and things like that but the interpretive process even in those communities is part of how we show respect for the text. I mean when I was working with the high school and I just want to call out the choir director Ethan Chess who has an incredible project where he brings in a different artist every two years to work with the choir and they tend to have a different cultural focus each time. And so he invited me specifically to do um to integrate my you know songwriting about biblical women with his amazing high school choir. And I was really worried at first because I thought like they're not most of them are not Jewish. Very few of them if any. And I wanted to respect their spiritual you know paths and their religious heritages and not impose mine on them. And so I spent a lot of time at the beginning saying like this project has religious source material but essentially it is a creative reinterpretive project. And so I am not coming to you to like take the religious material to you. I'm coming to take the sort of you know myth of it the shared Hebrew Bible myths and then reinterpret those myths through a lens of how they might reflect our own personal struggles because that's always my approach to these ancient stories. So I wanted to really make that clear to the students. It was such a joy to work with them at Chemist Cam High School and Chemist Washington. — Yeah. And it's such an interesting project that one, but also I find with musicians in general, this idea of performance. So you've written this thing or this thing specifically with the school, it doesn't exist again, right? You're not, I presume, like selling CDs of that. I mean whereas compared to a book when we write this book and we can sell it like forever it doesn't exist as a performance generally for an author of a memoir like you or novel or whatever it carries on existing and so how does that feel with the sort of performance idea versus the sort of longerlasting thing I mean I guess that video is there but you know what I mean the performance itself happened. — I do know what you mean. Absolutely. And we did for that reason we recorded it professionally. So we had the sound person record it professionally and mix it and so it is available to stream. I'm not selling CDs but it's like out there on all the streaming services. So if people want to listen to it and I do have the scores so if a choir wanted to sing it. But the main point that you're making is so true that live performance I think that's actually something very sacred about live performance is that we're all in the moment together and then the moment is over. And I mean I love the artifacts of the writing life. I love writing books. I love buying and reading books and having them around and there's piles of them everywhere in this room that I'm standing in. Um, — and I also love that sort of pure I mean I feel like being on stage or even teaching is a very spiritual practice for me because it's sort of in some ways for me the most in the moment I ever am. The only thing that matters is what's happening right then in that room. And it's kind of fleeting as it goes. And I'm working with the energy in the room while we're there. It's different every time because I'm different. The atmosphere is different. The people are different. And so there's no way to plan it. The kind of micro precision that we all try to bring to our editing there. You can't. You know, you can practice all you want and you should, I guess, but in the moment, who knows? the string breaks or there's loud sound coming from the other room and it is just a basic one of those kind of I love being reminded over and over again of the truth that we really don't control what happens and the best that we can do is to sort of you know ride it, surf it, be in it, appreciate it and then kind of let it go. Yeah, I think maybe I get a glimpse of that when I speak professionally, but I'm very I'm far more in control in that situation than I guess you were with I don't know how many was it like a hundred kids in that choir. It looked pretty big. — It was amazing. It was 130 kids. Yeah. — 130 kids and there Yeah. I mean, and it was magic listening to it. And yes, I'm of course showing my age there with buying a CD, aren't I? Well, I do still sell some CDs of Girls in Trouble on tour because I have a bunch of them and people still buy them and I'm always so grateful because it was an easier life for touring musicians when we could just bring CDs. Now we have to be very creative about our merch. — Yeah, that's a good point because people are like, "Oh yeah, I'll scan your QR code and download your stream or whatever. " But you don't that they you might get the money for that no time and it might just be 5 cents or whatever as opposed to — streaming is terrible for live musicians. I mean, there's, you know, I don't know if you know the site Band Camp, but it's essentially self-publishing for musicians. And so, Band Camp is a great way around that and a lot of independent musicians use that because that's a place that you can upload it and people can pay $8 for an album and they can stream it on there if they want or they can download it and have it. But, um, yeah, it's hard out ### Segment 8 (35:00 - 40:00) [35:00] there for touring musicians. — Yeah, for sure. Well, let's come to the book then. So, your memoir, When we're Born, we Forget Everything. So tell us about some of the challenges of a book as opposed to these other types of performances. — Well, I come out of poetry. So that was my first love. That's what I majored in college. That's what my MFA is in. And poetry is famously short and I'm not one of those long form poets. So I have been trained for many years to think in terms of a kind of one-page arc, if at all. You know, arc isn't even really a word that we use in poetry. And so to write a fulllength pros book was really an incredible education. I mean I feel like writing it which basically took it took 10 years from writing to publication. So probably seven years of writing and editing. It felt I felt like there was a sort of MFA equivalent process of the number of classes I took in books I read and work that went into it. So that was one of my main joys and challenges was really learning on the job to write long form pros coming out of poetry and how to kind of keep the engine going and how to think about ending one chapter in a way that leaves you with some torque or you know kind of momentum so you want to go into the next chapter and how many characters is too many, who gets names and who doesn't. Some of these things that are probably pretty maybe basic for fiction writers but were all very new to me. So that was a big part of my process. And then of course poets don't usually have agents. So once it was done, I began to query agents. And that was, you know, it was the normal sort of 39 rejections and then one agent really understanding what I was trying to do. And she's incredible and was able to sell the book. Yeah. So and the longevity of just working on something for that long. I have a lot of joy in that longevity, but it does sometimes feel like is this ever going to happen or am I on like a fool's errand? — Well, and I guess again the difference with the performance like you have a date for the performance and it's like it's done then and I suppose once you get a contract then for sure it has to be done but memoir in particular you do have to set boundaries because of course your life continues doesn't it? What were the challenges in curating what went into the book? Because many people listening, I guess memoir is very challenging in terms of how personal it can be. — Yeah. Yes. And one thing I think is so essentially fascinating about memoir is choosing which lens to put on your story, on your own story. So you know I heard early on like the difference between autobiography and memoir is autobiography tries to give a really comprehensive view of a life and memoir is choosing one lens and telling the story of a life through that lens which is such a beautiful creative concept. So I knew early on that I wanted this to be primarily a spiritual memoir and also somewhat of an artistic memoir because my creativity and my spirituality are so intertwined. It started off being spiritual and also about my musical life writing life. And in the end, I edited out the part about my writing life because writing about writing was just too solistic. — So there's nothing in there about me coming of age as a writer, which used to be in there, but that whole thing got taken out and now it's spiritual and musical. And I think for me it really helped to start with those focuses because I knew there may be things that were hugely important in my life that were absolutely foundational that were not really going to be either mentioned or gone deeply into in the book and like for example my husband teases me a lot about like how few pages and words he gets. So he's very important in my life but I actually you know met him when I was 29 and this book really sort of mainly takes place in the years leading up to that was a little bit of sort of winding down the first few years of my 30s but this is not a book about my life with him this is a book about earlier life and he is you know mentioned in it that story is in there so I think having those kinds of limitations around the canvas there's a quote I forget if it was Miranda July somebody said something like basically when you put a limitation on your project that's when it starts to be a work of art so whatever it is if you say I'm taking this canvas and I'm using these colors and that's when it really begins is that initial limitation that was very helpful for me. Yeah. And it's also the beauty of memoir because of course you can write different memoirs at different times. You know, you can write something about your writing life. else about your marriage and your family like later on. It doesn't all have to be in one book. So, I think that's actually something I found interesting. I would also say in my memoir, Pilgrimage, my husband is barely mentioned either. So, — does he tease you, too? — No, he I think he's grateful. He's grateful for the privacy. — Yeah, that's why I keep saying you should be grateful. ### Segment 9 (40:00 - 45:00) [40:00] — Yeah, you really should. Like, maybe stop talking now. — Yeah, exactly. — I know. Marriage memoir. Those words should strike fear into his heart. — They definitely should for sure. But let's just come back. You I mean, you mentioned an agent there. Now, when I kind of look at your career, you just seem such an independent creative. And so, I wondered why you decided to work with a traditional publisher instead of sort of being an independent. And how are you finding it as someone who's not in charge of everything? — Yes. Well, it's a great question. The origin story for this memoir is that I was actually reading poetry at a writing conference called Breadloaf in the States. And this was 16 years ago or something. So, I was at a poetry reading. I was giving a reading and afterwards an agent, not my agent, an agent came up to me and said, "You know, you have a voice. You should try writing non-fiction because you could probably sell it. " And back to your question about how I support myself. I mean, I am always really sort of like hustling to make a living. It's not like I have some separate well-paying job and the writing has no pressure on it. So, my ears kind of perked up. I thought, "Wait, getting paid for writing? " because poetry does not there's it's literally like not in the world you know it's just not a concept for poets that's not why we write and it's not a possibility uh so I sort of like a little you know light turned on in my brain I thought wow that could be a really interesting you know element to add to my income stream and it would be flexible meaningful and so for a few years I thought what non-fiction could I write and I came up with the idea of writing a book about biblical women from a little bit more of a scholarly perspective because I teach that material and I study it and I went to speak to another agent and she said, "Well, you could do that, but if you actually want to sell a book, it's going to have to be more of like a trade book. So, if you don't want to have an academic press, which wouldn't pay very much, you would have to [clears throat] have like some kind of memoir like stories in there to just sort of sweeten it so it doesn't feel academic. " So, then I began writing a little bit of spiritual memoir just I thought, "Okay, well, I'll write about a few moments. " And once I started writing, I kind of couldn't stop. The floodgates really opened and that's how it ended up being a spiritual memoir with interwoven stories of biblical women. So it ended up kind of becoming a hybrid in that sense. So I knew from the beginning that this project, you know, for all my saying earlier to you that I never plan anything and I only work on instincts. I was thinking as I said that cannot be true and I was thinking of like counter examples. But you know this I actually thought, wow, what if instead of coming from this like pure heartfocused place of poetry, what if I kind of thought like began writing with the intention of potentially selling a book and the way that my fiction writer friends talked about selling their books? So that was always in my mind was that like I knew that I would continue [snorts] writing poetry, continue publishing on small presses, continue putting my own music out there independently. But this was a bit of like an experiment of what if I try to interface with the publishing world in part for financial sustainability. So that that was actually in there from the beginning. And because I had a full draft before I queried, I never felt like anyone was telling me what to write. You know, I think it would have I can't imagine personally selling a book like on proposal because I do need that kind of full capacity to just swerve, change directions, be responsive to what the project is teaching me. So, I can't imagine promising that I'll write something because I never know what I'll write. But I think for me, writing at least a very solid draft, I'm always delighted to get notes and make polish and rewrite and make things better. But I start I kind of took care of that freedom in the first seven years of writing and then I interfaced with the agent and publisher. — Well, I was going to say I mean given that it's taken you 7 to 10 years to do this and I can't imagine that you're suddenly a multi-millionaire from this book. — So I mean it probably hasn't fulfilled the hourly rate that perhaps you were thinking of in terms of memoir like being paid I guess for your work. I think some people think that everyone's going to end up with the massive book deal that pays for the rest of their life, but I guess this does just fit into the rest of your portfolio career. Yeah. You know, one of the benefits of these long arcs that I like to work on projects is one of them and probably the primary one is that the project gets to unfold on its own time. So, I don't think I could have rushed it if I wanted. But the other is that it never really stopped me from doing any of my other work, you know? M — so it's not like oh I gave up months of my life and all I got was this advance or something. It's like I was living my life and then when I had a little bit of writing time and I will say like it impacted my po like I haven't written as much poetry because I was working on this. So it wasn't like I just added it on top of everything I was already doing but it was a pleasure to just kind of ### Segment 10 (45:00 - 50:00) [45:00] switch to pros for a while. And so it was just sort of woven into my life. I appreciated having this kind of side project where no one was waiting for it. There were no deadlines. There was no stress around it because I always have performances to promote and due dates for all kinds of work. And it was just this really lovely arena of slow growth and play. And when I wanted a reader, I could do a swap with a writer friend or something, but no one was ever like waiting for it on deadline. So, there's actually a lot of pleasure in that. And then I will say, I mean, I think I've made more from selling this than probably 10 close to 10 times more than I've ever made from any of my poetry, you know. So, it on a poetry scale, you know, it's certainly not going to pay for my life, but it actually does make a true financial difference in a way that, you know, much of my other work is a little more sort of like bit by bit and it actually is a different scale. — Well, that's really good. I'm glad to hear that. So I also want to ask you because you've done so many things. It's like there's so much stuff to ask you, but I'm fascinated by your independent film akadish for Bernie Maidoff which and I have only watched the trailer. Um now you're in it, you wrote it, directed it and it's also obviously got other people in and it's fascinating and it's about this particular point in history and I think so many of us like I've written quite a lot of screenplay sort of adaptations of my novels. some, you know, I've had some various amounts of interest, but the whole film industry to me is just a complete nightmare, far bigger nightmare than the book industry. And so I wondered if you could maybe talk about this because it just seems like you made a film, which is so cool. — Yes, thank you. — Oh, and it won awards. Yes, — it did win awards. Yes. It really for a for an extremely lowbudget indie film, it went far further than my team and I could ever have imagined. So I will say I never intended to make a film. Like most of the best things in my life have really happened by accident. So when I was living in New York, I lived in New York for many years and I was living there when the 2008 financial collapse happened. And I happened to be I had an arts grant that granted a bunch of artists a workspace kind of studio space in essentially an abandoned building in the financial district. It was an empty floor of a building, not the whole building, but the floor had been left by the previous tenant. And so there was a there's a nonprofit that takes unused real estate in the financial district and lets artists work in it for a while. And so I was on Wall Street, which was very rare for me, but for this year I was working on Wall Street, even though poems. And you know, the financial collapse happened around me. And I I did get inspired by that to create a onewoman show, which was more of a theater show. So that was already a huge leap for me because I had no real theater experience. But it was sort of experimental and it was kind of growing out of my poetry practice and my music. So it was a musical onewoman show about the financial collapse from a spiritual perspective apparently uh basically. And so I performed that, I documented it and then a friend who lives in Portland, Oregon where I now live when I moved here said, "Why don't you I'm a theater producer. I'd like to produce it here. " So then I rewrote it and did a run here in Portland of that show and essentially I started to tour it a little bit but I got kind of tired of it. It was too much work and it never really paid very much and I was like this is impacting my life negatively. I just want to do a really good documentation of the show. So I hired I wanted to hire like a theater documentarian to just document the show so that it didn't disappear like you were saying before about live performance. But one of the people that I talked to actually ended up being a filmmaker, like a art artistic filmmaker as opposed to a documentary, a film documentarian, theater documentarian, and she watched the archival footage of just single camera of the show and said, "I don't think you should do this again and film it with three cameras. I think you should make it into a feature film. And in fact, I think maybe I should direct it because there's all this music in it and I also direct music videos. " And we kind of had this mind meld. And so I never intended to make a film, but she is a visionary director and I had this kind of piece of IP essentially and the you know all the music and the writing and so we adapted it together and I will say that we did it here in Portland. We did all the fundraising ourselves. We did not interface with Hollywood really, you know. Um, and I think that would be, you know, I just can't imagine, I mean, I love Hollywood, but I'm not really connected. And I can't imagine waiting for someone to give us permission or, you know, giving us a green light to make this. It's, it was experimental and indie. And so, we just really did it on the cheap. We had an amazing producer who helped us figure out how to do it with the budget that we had. We worked really hard fundraising ### Segment 11 (50:00 - 55:00) [50:00] crowdfunding, asking for donations, having parties to raise money, and then we just did it and put it out there. And so I think my main advice, and I hear this a lot on I love listening to screenwriting podcasts, and I often hear them say, just make the thing. Like make something as opposed to trying to get permission to make something. Because really, unless you're already in that system, it's going to be really hard to get permission to make it. But once you make something that leads to something else which or even if it's a very short thing filmed on your phone just actually make the thing and that turned out to be the right thing for us. — Yeah. I mean I feel like that is what underpins us as independent creatives in general and you know as an independent author I feel the same way. It's like I'm never asking permission to put a book in the world. No thank you. — Exactly. We have a vision and we do it and it's harder in some ways, but that sort of, you know, liberation of being able to really fully create our vision without having to compromise it or wait for permission, I think it's such a beautiful thing. Well, we're almost out of time, but I do then want to ask you about I guess creative confidence, — which I feel I'm getting sort of a lot of sense about this at the moment and with all the AI stuff that's happening and I feel like when you've been creating a long time like you and I have, we know our voice and we can lean into are creatively confident and we'll fail a lot but we'll just push on and try things and see what happens. But newer creators are struggling with this kind of confidence. How do I know what is my voice? I like or how do I lean into this? So, give us some thoughts about how to find your voice and how to find that creative confidence if you don't feel you have it. — Yes, I love that. I mean, one thing I will say is that I always think whatever is arising is powerful material to create from. So if a lack of confidence is arising, that's a really powerful feeling to directly explore and not just try to necessarily ignore although sometimes one has to just ignore those feelings, but to actually explore that feeling because I mean AI can't have that, right? AI can't really feel a crisis of confidence and humans can. So that's a gift that we have that those kinds of sensitivities. So I think to go really deep into whatever is arising in including the sense that we don't have the right to be creating or we're not good enough or whatever it is. And then I always do come back to a quote I'm for I think it might have been John Barryman but I'm forgetting which poet said it but a younger poet said you know how will I ever know if I'm any good and this famous poet said something like I'm paraphrasing but something like you'll never know if you're any good if you have to know don't write. And that has been really liberating to me. Actually, it sounds a little harsh, but it's been really liberating to just let go of a sense of good enough. Like there is no good enough. And the great writers never know if they're good enough. And it's coming back to this idea of just making without permission. It's actually the practice of doing the thing is being a writer and caring and trying to improve our craft. That's the best that we can have. And that there's never going to be a moment that we're like, "Yes, I've nailed this. I am truly 100% a writer and I have found my voice. Everything's always changing anyway. So, I would say, you know, either go into those feelings or let those feelings be there. Give them a little tea, you know, tell them, okay, you're welcome to be here, but you don't get to drive the boat. And then kind of return to the practice of making. — Absolutely. Great. So, where can people find you and your books and everything you do online? — Yes. Well, everything is on my website, which is alicia joe. com. A L I C I AJ O. com and also on Instagram at oalicia Joe oh h a l i c i a j o and I'd love to say hello to anyone who's interested in similar topics. — Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Alicia. That was great. — Thank you. And I love your podcast. I'm so grateful for all that you've given the writing world to. — So, I hope you found the interview with Alicia inspiring and interesting. And while I am not intending to write a musical performance based on my masters in death, I love how Alicia is weaving her faith and culture into these huge creative projects as well as writing books. This kind of creative ambition is a wonderful thing. So let me know what you think. Please leave a comment on the podcast show notes at the creativepen. com or on the YouTube channel or email me joanna@thecreatpen. com. Also, send me pictures of where you're listening or your favorite cemetery or churchyard. Next Monday, I'm talking about writing emotion, discovery writing, and slow sustainable book marketing with Ros Morris. In the meantime, happy writing and I'll see you next time. Thanks for listening today. I ### Segment 12 (55:00 - 55:00) [55:00] hope you found it helpful. You can find the backlist episodes and show notes at the creativepen. com/mpodcast. And you can get your free author blueprint at therecreaten. com/bloopprint. If you'd like to connect, you can find me on Facebook and X at the creative pen or on Instagram and Facebook @JF Penauor. Happy writing and I'll see you next time.