"The thing that puzzled him was why people don't agree to be fully expressed while they're alive. Why does it only happen in their last moment? Why wouldn't you live being fully expressed?"

My guest today is AL Kennedy. She is one of Britain’s most acclaimed and versatile literary voices, a writer who can inhabit the internal life of a soldier in a POW camp, as she did in her Costa Book Award-winning novel Day, as easily as she can navigate the "professional lying" of a modern civil servant.

Her latest novel, Alive in the Merciful Country, takes place during the 2020 lockdown. It tells the story of a primary school teacher who receives a confession from an undercover police officer who infiltrated her life decades earlier. It’s a provocative investigation into state power, the "Spy Cops" scandal and the search for mercy in an age of surveillance. It’s a book about the breakdown of trust. We talk about her life, her activism, and why she believes fiction is the only way to tell the truth when the facts are forbidden and how she balances the truth of her novels with the relief of stand-up comedy.

(0:00) Finding Your Voice On the Alfred Wolfsohn voice method and the power of being fully expressed

(2:30) Reading from Alive in the Merciful Country Kennedy shares a passage from her latest novel, exploring hope and resilience in dark times.

(4:43) The Myth of Shrinking Attention Spans Challenging the narrative that modern audiences cannot focus, and the importance of engaging storytelling.

(6:22) Education and the Foundation of Democracy The dangers of dismantling education and how critical thinking protects us from fascism.

(10:26) The Spy Cop Scandal and State Surveillance Unpacking the reality of undercover police infiltrating peaceful protests and intimate lives.

(13:59) Lockdown: A Global Pause and the Inrush of Empathy

The fleeting moment of unified humanity during the pandemic and how it was ultimately betrayed.

(22:07) AI, Digital Slop, and the Loss of Trust Reflections on artificial intelligence as an unstable plagiarism machine and its impact on truth.

(33:13) Lockdown: A Global Pause and the Inrush of Empathy The fleeting moment of unified humanity during the pandemic and how it was ultimately betrayed.

(17:34) Writing Without Theft: The Ethics of Character Creation Kennedy explains her imaginative process and why she refuses to steal details from real people's lives.

(28:16) AI, Digital Slop, and the Loss of Trust Reflections on artificial intelligence as an unstable plagiarism machine and its impact on truth.

(30:03) Nature, Spirituality, and the Merciful Country Finding healing in the natural world and navigating the future with love and awareness.

Episode Website

www.creativeprocess.info/pod

Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

What happens when the state infiltrates your most intimate relationships? How do we protect the innocence and imagination of children in an increasingly authoritarian world? “"If you have love, eventually you're going to win. It's not that people aren't going to die. It's not terrible things aren't going to happen. But if you stay with that and you stay centered in that, you'll get through and you will not have turned into a monster in order to overcome monsters.”

My guest today is AL Kennedy. She is one of Britain’s most acclaimed and versatile literary voices, a writer who can inhabit the internal life of a soldier in a POW camp, as she did in her Costa Book Award-winning novel Day, as easily as she can navigate the "professional lying" of a modern civil servant.

Her latest novel, Alive in the Merciful Country, takes place during the 2020 lockdown. It tells the story of a primary school teacher who receives a confession from an undercover police officer who infiltrated her life decades earlier. It’s a provocative investigation into state power, the "Spy Cops" scandal and the search for mercy in an age of surveillance. It’s a book about the breakdown of trust. We talk about her life, her activism, and why she believes fiction is the only way to tell the truth when the facts are forbidden and how she balances the truth of her novels with the relief of stand-up comedy.

(0:00) Finding Your Voice On the Alfred Wolfsohn voice method and the power of being fully expressed

(2:17) Education and the Foundation of Democracy The dangers of dismantling education and how critical thinking protects us from fascism.

(5:14) The Myth of Shrinking Attention Spans Challenging the narrative that modern audiences cannot focus, and the importance of engaging storytelling.

(8:23) Reading from Alive in the Merciful Country Kennedy shares a passage from her latest novel, exploring hope and resilience in dark times.

(17:45) The Spy Cop Scandal and State Surveillance Unpacking the reality of undercover police infiltrating peaceful protests and intimate lives.

(22:07) AI, Digital Slop, and the Loss of Trust Reflections on artificial intelligence as an unstable plagiarism machine and its impact on truth.

(28:29) The Power of the Powerless: Radical Whimsy How absurdity, humor, and inflatable costumes can disrupt authoritarian mindsets and potential violence.

(33:13) Lockdown: A Global Pause and the Inrush of Empathy The fleeting moment of unified humanity during the pandemic and how it was ultimately betrayed.

(42:53) Writing Without Theft: The Ethics of Character Creation Kennedy explains her imaginative process and why she refuses to steal details from real people's lives.

(1:29:40) Nature, Spirituality, and the Merciful Country Finding healing in the natural world and navigating the future with love and awareness.

Episode Website

www.creativeprocess.info/pod

IG @creativeprocesspodcast

“Grief is a particular kind of unrequited love. It wasn't unrequited in the past. Usually, we think of unrequited love as you never got to do it, you never had it for yourself. But, in fact, there can be requited love, which is then unrequited love in the paroxysms of grief.”

Today, we are honored to welcome a writer whose work has long explored the intimate landscapes of the mind, memory and the heart. Siri Hustvedt’s writing moves between the personal and the philosophical, the literary and the deeply human. Her work bridges collections of essays, non-fiction, poetry, and seven novels, including the international bestsellers What I Loved and The Summer Without Men. Recipient of the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature and the Gabarron Prize for Thought, her work has been translated into over thirty languages. Her new memoir, Ghost Stories, is a reflection on forty-three years shared with her late husband, the writer and filmmaker Paul Auster. In its pages, we encounter not only love and loss, but the quiet persistence of presence, memory, and language itself.

(0:00) “We were hugely important to the drama of becoming in our own lives”

(2:04) Grief as Unrequited Love

Siri explores the emotional reality of living without Paul Auster, noting that grief occurs because love does not stop when a person dies.

(3:19) The Shared Space of a 43-year Marriage

(4:36) Reading from Ghost Stories

Siri reads the opening passage of her memoir, detailing how the loss of her husband deranged her sense of time and bodily rhythms.

(7:02) How Loss Changes Our Sense of Time

(11:24)  How Powerful Emotions and a Person's Life Can Play a Role in Illness

(13:04) Believing in a Reality that Transcends the Individual

(20:06) Physical Love in Marriage

On the importance of physical intimacy in long-term marriages, a reality often left out of grief memoirs.

Episode Website

www.creativeprocess.info/pod

Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“Grief happens because you don't stop loving the person who died. The person doesn't exist in your reality anymore. The everyday is not colored and shaped by this other human being, but you don't stop loving the person. So grief is a particular kind of unrequited love. And probably without that dynamic relationship with this person, I would be someone else. And he would've been someone else. I mean, Paul died before me. But we were, I think, hugely important to the drama of becoming in our own lives.”

Today, we are honored to welcome a writer whose work has long explored the intimate landscapes of the mind, memory and the heart. Siri Hustvedt’s writing moves between the personal and the philosophical, the literary and the deeply human. Her work bridges collections of essays, non-fiction, poetry, and seven novels, including the international bestsellers What I Loved and The Summer Without Men. Recipient of the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature and the Gabarron Prize for Thought, her work has been translated into over thirty languages. Her new memoir, Ghost Stories, is a reflection on forty-three years shared with her late husband, the writer and filmmaker Paul Auster. In its pages, we encounter not only love and loss, but the quiet persistence of presence, memory, and language itself.

(0:00) Grief as Unrequited Love

Siri explores the emotional reality of living without Paul Auster, noting that grief occurs because love does not stop when a person dies.

(4:00) Facing Death with Courage

The importance of not hiding from mortality and how discussing end-of-life wishes offered a necessary perspective.

(12:37) Reading from Ghost Stories

Siri reads the opening passage of her memoir, detailing how the loss of her husband deranged her sense of time and bodily rhythms.

(18:41) The Phantom Limb: ” The beloved is taken away and it feels as if you're amputated or gutted.”

(21:50)  Grandfather, Father and Son: Generational Traumas Behind Paul Auster's Writing

(24:11)  How Powerful Emotions and a Person's Life Can Play a Role in Illness

(30:09) Feeding the Earth  

"Paul very pointedly told me that he wanted to be buried in the Jewish mode. And the phrase he used was, “I want my body to feed the earth.”

(44:23) Physical Love in Marriage

On the importance of physical intimacy in long-term marriages, a reality often left out of grief memoirs.

(54:00) The Philosophy of the Between

How relational existence is foundational to life.

(1:00:16) The Hubris of Controlling Nature

(1:12:00) The Dark History of Statistics

(1:32:12) The Art of Learning vs. AI and Automated Outcomes

“I think we have to ask ourselves, what is education? What do we want from it? How do we want people to learn?

Episode Website

www.creativeprocess.info/pod

Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

"Within society, we seem to have separated the arts out, so they're not so much a part of our daily lives. Often there's something that we feel we should do as a kind of leisure activity or hobby if we have enough time or if we have enough money to engage in them. And this is so fundamentally different to how humans engaged with the arts. When we look back thousands of years, it just was part of the everyday, and I feel like that's a major loss within contemporary societies."

Daisy Fancourt is a Professor of Psychology & Epidemiology at UCL and the author of Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Transform Our Health. A pioneer in the field of psychoneuroimmunology, she directs the WHO Collaborating Center on Arts and Health, where her research influences global health policy and the integration of the arts into medical care.

(0:00) The Healing Power of the Arts: Longevity, Immunity & Wellbeing

(1:17) Singing to Daphne: How Daisy used singing to comfort her premature daughter in the ICU

(2:47) The Story of Russell: How a stroke survivor used art classes to reclaim his life, health, and identity

(5:23) A Planet of 8 Billion Artists: Tracing the evolutionary origins of creativity back 40,000 years

(8:58) Psychoneuroimmunology. Defining the biological mechanisms: how art reduces inflammation and cortisol

(12:42) Art & Longevity. How arts engagement can slow biological aging and alter gene expression

(18:24) Safeguarding Creativity. Why we should use AI for routine tasks but protect the human joy of the creative process

Episode Website

www.creativeprocess.info/pod

Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

Did you know that visiting a museum can lower your cortisol levels? Or that singing can bond a group faster than almost any other activity? We tend to think of the arts as entertainment, but science tells a different story. Today, we explore why creativity is hardwired into our biology and how it can be used to treat everything from postnatal depression to stroke recovery.

Daisy Fancourt is a Professor of Psychology & Epidemiology at UCL and the author of Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Transform Our Health. A pioneer in the field of psychoneuroimmunology, she directs the WHO Collaborating Center on Arts and Health, where her research influences global health policy and the integration of the arts into medical care.

(0:00) The Healing Power of the Arts: Longevity, Immunity & Wellbeing

(4:14) The Story of Russell: How a stroke survivor used art classes to reclaim his life, health, and identity

(9:01) A Planet of 8 Billion Artists: Tracing the evolutionary origins of creativity back 40,000 years

(15:30) The Chemistry of Connection. Why singing evolved before language and how it accelerates group bonding

(20:32) Psychoneuroimmunology. Defining the biological mechanisms: how art reduces inflammation and cortisol

(25:57) The Professional Paradox: Balancing the wellbeing benefits of art with the pressures of a creative career

(30:03) Predictive Coding & Play: Why the human brain needs improvisation and why we shouldn't outsource creativity to AI

(33:26) Singing to Daphne: How Daisy usedsinging to comfort her premature daughter in the ICU

(37:55) World Health Organization, Public Policy & Social Prescribing

(46:04) Art & Longevity. How arts engagement can slow biological aging and alter gene expression

(58:17) Finding Artistic Reverence in Nature

Episode Website

www.creativeprocess.info/pod

Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

Why do we write? Is it to capture a memory before it vanishes or to build a bridge between the person we are and the stories we've been told? In this episode of The Creative Process, we explore the practice of writing as an awakening and tool for discovery with a group of celebrated poets, novelists, musicians and thinkers.

We hear from neuroscientist, dancer and author Julia Christensen on how literature inspires transformative aesthetic experiences. Award-winning poet and clinical psychologist Hala Alyan discusses navigating displacement through narrative, while bestselling author Andre Dubus III reflects on the honest labor of the writer and the willingness to fail.

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Jericho Brown shares how the sounds of American vernacular guide his work and Fmr. US Poet Laureate Ada Limón discusses holding hope within frightening thoughts about the future of our planet. NYT Bestseller Aimee Nezhukumatathil speaks on tenderness towards the natural world and naturalist Sy Montgomery shares how animals have been her greatest teachers.

The conversation expands with poet Max Stossel on finding humanity in conflict, Tiokasin Ghosthorse on the ancient energy of the earth and Julian Lennon on art as a collective human endeavor. Finally, composer Erland Cooper takes us to the landscape of his youth, where the sound of the sea informed his creative voice.

To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.

Episode Website

www.creativeprocess.info/pod

Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

How do we restore trust and defend democracy when the very foundations of truth are shifting? Today we look at truth, the decline of the American Empire and buiding a shared future through the eyes of educators and economists, artists and philosophers.

(0:00) Lee McIntyre (Philosopher, Author) On Disinformation: How to Fight for Truth and Protect Democracy

(2:21) Richard D. Wolff (Economist, Founder of Democracy at Work) on Ideological Control and the Decline of the American Empire

(4:36) Kathleen Rogers (President, Earth Day Network) Why climate literacy should be a core requirement for school

(5:11) Todd Kashdan (Psychologist, Author of The Art of Insubordination) on Critical Thinking in Education

(6:17) Howard Gardner (Psychologist, Co-Director of The Good Project) on the Synthesizing Mind

(7:34) Alan Poul (Emmy Award-winning Director/Producer of Six Feet Under, Tokyo Vice) on Paul Schrader, Stephen Sondheim  and the Importance of Mentorship

(9:15) Jeffrey Sachs (Economist, President of UN SDSN) on Sustainable development and global citizenship for all

(10:29) Jericho Brown (Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet of The Tradition) “When you are a writer, you are a person of power.”

(11:38) Peter Singer (Moral Philosopher, Author of The Life You Can Save) on Altruism and How to Live a Good Life

To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.

Episode Website

www.creativeprocess.info/pod

Instagram @creativeprocesspodcast