the Inspirited Word

Jan 31 2025 25 ep. 29 mins 1
the Inspirited Word Podcast artwork

The Inspirited Word is the monthly podcast for writers ready to stop second-guessing their storytelling and ready to start breathing life, spirit, and deep magic back into their craft. We’ll explore ways to enliven the technical mechanics of our writing with the full visionary potential of our imaginations—so we can uncover our most potent, most necessary work. Join us as we rediscover the radical, transformative power in our stories... and actually get those powerful stories on the page.
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  Arts  Religion & Spirituality
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24. Resolving to stay curious

Jan 31 2025 25 mins  
It's January! And regardless of how you feel about the whole “new year, new you” vibe, January is the ultimate case study of goal-setting in the wider cultural zeitgeist. Maybe you’ve tried the often-hyped approach of choosing a word to act as a mantra or touchstone to guide you over the course of the year.Tools like a word of the year can be powerful reminders of the ways yo

23. The creativity of longing (Or, crafting hopeful stories)

Nov 29 2024 28 mins  
I allude pretty clearly to my political leanings on the podcast, but I don’t generally structure entire episodes around specific political issues. And I do like for this to be a kind of quiet space where you can come to recollect your creative self, whatever’s going on in the world and in your life.But I decided it wouldn’t feel genuine to not talk about the fallout of the US

22. Magical thinking for practical writers

Oct 25 2024 25 mins  
This month, sort of in honor of Halloween and sort of just because, I want to share and explore a single phrase about writing that has been inspiring me lately:Your characters are your ancestors.This idea unlocks all sorts of potential for me – but I admit that it also feels a little overly sentimental. Even for creatives, there can be disdain around ways of thinking ab

21. The story is not the territory (Or, stories as maps)

Sep 27 2024 33 mins  
Today’s pod is coming to you from the messy middle of something I’ve been mulling over for a long time. Something I don’t have a tagline for yet, but that still feels worth sharing, in all its in-process, still-forming glory.If there’s anything I believe in, it’s the power and necessity of creative expression. But I’m going to be talking this month about the limitations

20. How (and why) to hold creative space

Aug 30 2024 35 mins  
Today’s episode is for any writer who’s found themselves focused more on chasing the perfect creative practice than actually having a creative practice. (So, it’s for most of us.)This month I’m sharing a writerly angle on the idea of holding space or creating a container. Specifically, what kind of space might actually keep you contained enough to experience sustained growt

19. Finding allies for your creative dream

Jul 26 2024 33 mins  
This pod is usually focused on our personal relationships to our writing, and ways to rediscover and strengthen that alchemical creative connection. But this month, I’ve been thinking about the role other people can play in helping us sustain and carry our creative dreams.It’s much easier to tap into the flow of creative alchemy if someone else is extending their own alchemical

18. No before yes: How to learn from writing you hate

Jun 28 2024 32 mins  
As a rule of thumb on this podcast, I try to keep things generally positive, since most of us have enough negativity in our creative lives. This month, though, I’m inviting you to take a little trip with me to the realm of evaluation, judgment, and yes, even snark.But let’s be clear: I don’t mean snark directed against yourself. I’m talking about letting yourself just 

17. Dead, mad, or a poet (Or, how to be less tortured)

May 31 2024 36 mins  
(First things first: Thank you to thank Taylor Swift for releasing The Tortured Poets Department last month and thus making this episode kind of topical…)We’re all way too familiar with the idea that emotional suffering or “madness” is the most powerful source of our creativity. It’s the cultural story that just won’t die. But today, I’m sharing a folklore-and-history

16. When to let a story go

Apr 26 2024 30 mins  
It’s pretty much objectively true that finishing stories is an excellent way to get better at finishing stories. This is true on both a practical level and a skills level — in addition to requiring persistence, writing endings is a technically difficult aspect of the craft, no matter what genre you’re writing.But while getting to the end of a project is often excellent practi

15. Reclaiming your creative calling

Mar 29 2024 30 mins  
Ever found yourself lying awake very late at night or very early in the morning wondering if you've missed your calling in life? I'm guessing most writers will be in the yes camp; we tend to be sensitive souls, primed by school and work and even religion to long for "the call" to a vocation of purpose and meaning.I think our insomniac worries stem from a common cultural fallacy: id