Unapologetically Creative

Adam McOmber, co chair of the VCFA MFA in Writing program, joins Erin LaRosa, author and romance workshop leader, and Spiro Skentzos, screenwriter and producer, to discuss the next chapter of the VCFA Writers’ Conference as it moves to CalArts in Los Angeles. The conversation explores creative community, the evolution of romance and screenwriting, storytelling in the age of AI, artistic risk taking, and why human connection remains at the center of the creative process.

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Time Stamps:

2:14 Building Creative Community
4:02 Why the Conference Moved to Los Angeles
6:08 Bringing Genre Fiction Into Literary Spaces
8:22 Romance Writing and Story Structure
11:14 Why Romance Is Often Misunderstood
14:23 The Rise of Sports Romance
17:02 Vulnerability and Emotional Truth in Romance
20:02 Representation and Inclusivity in Publishing
22:41 Writing to Market vs Writing Your Passion
25:10 Building Authentic Characters in Romance
27:08 Why Romance Writers Should Be Unapologetically Creative
29:23 The First 15 Pages of a Screenplay
32:11 Inside the TV Writers’ Room
34:37 Streaming, AI, and Modern Storytelling
38:12 Writing From Lived Experience
41:05 Thinking Visually for the Screen
43:14 Creativity, Collaboration, and Ownership
46:10 Why Intellectual Property Matters
48:02 Pushing Storytelling Forward
49:03 A New Chapter for VCFA Writers’ Conference

Suné Woods explores intimacy, collaboration, nonlinear storytelling, and the balance between feeling and thinking in artistic practice. Through reflections on water, ancestry, collective care, and multisensory installation work, Woods discusses how art can create spaces for connection, sanctuary, and deeper emotional presence in an increasingly overwhelming world. The conversation also examines openness in creative work, the importance of collaboration, and why the heart often leads before the mind can understand.

Time stamps:

2:46 Finding Intimacy Through Art
3:54 Art, Protest, and Collective Healing
5:16 Water, Ancestry, and Interconnection
7:20 The Spiritual Meaning of Water
8:44 Healing Through Artistic Practice
10:17 Why Collaboration Matters
11:54 Nonlinear Storytelling and Multisensory Art
13:34 Feeling Before Thinking
14:24 Slowing Down Through Art
16:06 Nature, Technology, and Presence
16:47 Why Art Stays Open Ended
17:45 Challenging Western Artistic Frameworks
19:02 Teaching Through Personal Belief Systems
20:20 What It Means to Be Unapologetically Creative
20:58 Advice to a Younger Artist
21:45 Art as an Invitation Forward

Sue William Silverman, award-winning author and co-chair of the MFA in Writing program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, joins Unapologetically Creative to explore the craft and courage behind creative nonfiction.

From uncovering deeper meaning through metaphor and revision to writing through vulnerability and emotional risk, Silverman shares how storytelling becomes a path to self-discovery. She discusses the balance between lived experience and reflection, the role of persistence in the creative process, and why writers must learn to claim their stories without apology. 

1:51 What Is Creative Nonfiction

4:17 The Unaware and Aware Narrator

6:10 Finding Meaning in Small Moments

9:55 Can Creative Nonfiction Be Taught

11:02 Writing Vulnerability and Personal Truths

14:30 Is Writing Therapeutic

15:41 Core Practices for Writers

17:09 The Power of Metaphor in Storytelling

19:51 Writing in the Present and Emotional Risk

22:58 Teaching Students to Share Difficult Stories

25:00 Advice to Younger Writers

26:41 What It Means to Be Unapologetically Creative

28:49 Final Takeaways on Creativity and Persistence

Shruti Swamy, author of A House is a Body and The Archer, explores how imagination, cultural inheritance, and intuition shape her work. Drawing from Hindu mythology and her experience growing up between cultures, she reflects on the flexibility that comes from a bicultural perspective and how it informs the way she sees and tells stories.

In this conversation, Shruti challenges traditional rules of craft, sharing why she’s moving beyond rigid frameworks like “show, don’t tell” and toward a more intuitive, truth-driven approach to writing. She also discusses the role of the subconscious in creative work, the importance of spaces that encourage experimentation, and how writers can reconnect with a sense of possibility when they feel stuck.

Throughout the episode, Shruti emphasizes the importance of telling the truth in both life and art, creating work that leaves space for the reader to step in, interpret, and find their own meaning.

01:28 Cultural Inheritance and Storytelling

03:32 Understanding Hindu Mythology

05:00 Growing Up Between Cultures

06:11 Bicultural Perspective and Imagination

08:23 Rethinking Writing Education and The Dreamside

11:07 Creative Practice and Reconnecting with Imagination

13:29 Risk Taking, Safety, and the Subconscious

15:31 Balancing Structure and Dreamlike Writing

16:56 Returning to the Writing Practice

18:46 Creativity and Telling the Truth

19:56 Advice to Her Younger Self

21:03 Building Courage and Creative Community

Brendan Constantine, poet and educator, explores how creativity evolves over time and why great work comes from moving forward rather than repeating what once worked.

In this conversation, he reflects on poetry as a “language within a language,” one that allows us to express what everyday speech cannot. He shares how teaching and working with individuals experiencing aphasia and brain injuries reshaped his understanding of communication, showing how creativity can restore connection and unlock new ways of thinking.

The episode also dives into the tension between growth and complacency, the role of failure in artistic practice, and why meaningful work is less about perfection and more about usefulness, generosity, and emotional truth.

1:41 Defining a Poetic Voice
2:53 AI Tries to Copy His Voice
4:01 Avoiding Creative Complacency
5:25 The Pitfalls of Praise
6:57 Why You Can’t Recreate Success
8:06 Poetry as a Language Within a Language
11:07 Is It True, Kind, or Helpful?
15:01 Reading Work Out Loud
18:00 Poetry and Aphasia Work
24:53 Giving Back in Art
28:41 What It Means to Be Unapologetically Creative

Artist Karla Diaz discusses how personal experiences, including caring for her mother and navigating loss, have shaped her creative work. She reflects on the ways art can serve as a space for processing grief, memory, and transformation, and how those experiences continue to inform the themes and direction of her practice.

The conversation also explores the role of intuition in the creative process, the importance of community in sustaining artists, and how creative work evolves over time while remaining connected to deeply personal experiences.

Timestamps:

2:12 Finding a Path into Art
6:05 Trusting Intuition in the Creative Process
9:48 How Life Experiences Shape Artistic Work
13:20 Caring for Her Mother and the Role of Healing in Art
17:42 Community, Collaboration, and Creative Support
21:05 Balancing Personal Life and Artistic Practice
24:36 How an Artist’s Work Evolves Over Time
27:58 Advice for Emerging Artists
30:15 Continuing to Create Through Life’s Changes

Ashley Hunt discusses how research and lived experience shape his creative work. Beginning with his evacuation during the Los Angeles wildfire, the conversation expands into his long engagement with mass incarceration and the systems that structure punishment in the United States. He reflects on art as a way to examine power, the importance of historical context, and the responsibility artists carry in understanding their own position in the work they make. Ashley also explores the idea of speaking alongside communities rather than for them and why art remains a space for critical thinking and possibility.

2:28 Evacuating Topanga Canyon and Community Response
6:22 Climate Crisis and the Educational Mission
9:30 Incarcerated Fire Crews and Exploited Labor
12:12 Two Californias and the Scale of Incarceration
15:12 Teaching, Criminalization, and Early Inquiry
18:21 Research as Artistic Practice
21:43 Profit Motives and Private Prisons
22:16 Counter Narratives and Media Mythology
24:54 History, Slavery, and the Prison System
27:03 Self Awareness, Privilege, and Accountability
27:59 James Baldwin and Rethinking Whiteness
30:28 CalArts and VCFA Coming Together
31:58 When Is the Right Time for Graduate School
35:04 What Unapologetically Creative Means

Poet, performer, and educator edwin bodney joins Unapologetically Creative for a deeply honest conversation about writing closer to the nerve, transforming grief into a landscape for discovery, and creating work rooted in truth, vulnerability, and connection. Edwin reflects on their journey from early open mic nights at the Poetry Lounge to becoming a powerful voice in contemporary spoken word, exploring how performance sharpened their craft and how storytelling became a space for survival, joy, and radical empathy.

Together, edwin and host Andrew Ramsammy unpack what it means to live and create without apology, why spoken word sits at the foundation of all literature, and how artists can continue their own stories on their own terms. From grief and identity to creativity as courage, this episode is a powerful reminder that no one else gets to write the ending of your story.

2:04 Getting Closer to the Nerve
4:00 Grief as Geography
7:51 Discovering Poetry and Performance
13:44 First Time on Stage
15:55 Growth Over Time
16:22 Identity, Belonging, and Connection
17:50 Bringing Audiences Closer to Themselves
19:25 Living Without Apology
20:27 Spoken Word as the Foundation of Literature
21:14 Breaking Rules in the Creative Process
21:54 Where Performance and Writing Converge
23:59 Writing for Truth and Vulnerability
25:36 Expanding Reach Through social media
26:58 Continuing Your Own Story

Brooke Champagne, award winning author of Nola Face: A Latina’s Life in the Big Easy, joins Unapologetically Creative for a conversation about writing from the most personal places and finding humor inside life’s contradictions. Growing up biracial in New Orleans shaped her voice, teaching her to hold darkness and joy in the same frame and to explore the complicated emotions that drive honest storytelling.

Brooke reflects on the risks of telling intimate family stories, the power of vulnerability on the page, and why writers must abandon people pleasing in pursuit of truth. She also shares how teaching and mentoring emerging writers reinforces her belief that, even in the age of AI, human storytelling…our need for that in order to survive is not going away.

This episode is a thoughtful look at identity, resilience, creative courage, and the responsibility artists have to document the world around them while inspiring others to make art of their own.

1:41 — Identity, Language, and Growing Up Biracial
4:18 — Writing the Hard Stuff
4:57 — The Philosophy of “Bugginess”
7:22 — Humor as Survival
9:25 — Abandoning People Pleasing to Tell the Truth
11:26 — Writing Risky, Intimate Stories
13:20 — When Family Reads Your Work
16:02 — How New Orleans Shapes Her Voice
17:18 — Editing, Deep Reading, and Literary Context
19:48 — Teaching Writers in the Age of AI
21:39 — Why Writers Must Keep Going
23:54 — What It Means to Be Unapologetically Creative
25:13 — Advice to Her Younger Self

Damon Davis reflects on how stories shape meaning, memory, and responsibility. Working across film, music, visual art, and public installation, Davis explains why he lets the story dictate the medium and how creative practice begins with close attention to place, history, and lived experience.

Throughout the conversation, Davis discusses subjectivity and fairness in storytelling, the implications of local work entering national institutions, and why art often becomes one of the lasting records of a moment in time. He shares how process, patience, and care guide his decisions, and why resisting labels allows the work to remain honest and grounded in context.

Rather than offering prescriptions, Davis leaves us with a way of thinking about creative practice that values intention over posture, meaning over speed, and the long life of work made with care.

0:22 — Introduction and Background

2:21 — Letting the Story Dictate the Medium

2:54 — Early Life, Family, and Creative Roots

4:59 — Process, Symbols, and Public Monuments

7:53 — Local Stories Going National

8:20 — Ferguson and Making Whose Streets?

10:53 — The Smithsonian and Art as Historical Record

15:06 — Art as a Tool for Truth and Authenticity

15:52 — Grief, Tropes, and Telling Difficult Stories

17:04 — Subjectivity, Objectivity, and Power

18:30 — Teaching, Stillness, and Self-Awareness

20:23 — Accolades, Ego, and Staying Grounded

22:29 — Relationships and Creative Fuel

23:48 — Activism, Burnout, and Branding

25:40 — Fatigue, Relevance, and Stepping Away

26:36 — Creating an Opera

30:16 — The Three Phase Creative Vision

33:00 — Being Unapologetically Creative