Resources & Inspiration

Prompts:

• Kurt Vonnegut’s 2006 Letter to Xavier High School Students + Poetry Prompt

• 30 Creative Prompts to Gently Kickstart the Year (Creative Boom, Jan 2026)

• 30 Days of Drawing (WendyMac, Jan 2026)

Articles:

• On using magic to channel your creative force (Creative Independent interview with Pam Grossman, Oct 2025)

• The Creativity Hack No One Told You About: Read the Obits (The MIT Press Reader, April 2025)

• The science behind creativity (American Psychological Association, Jan 2024)

• 6 good habits every creative should develop, to protect your mental health (Creative Boom, Sept 2024)

• I've studied highly creative people for 40 years: They share these 6 habits (CNBC, Oct 2024)

• Finding your Happy Place: How play and experimentation unlock inner calm (It’s Nice That, Sept 2024)

• Neuroscience Says This Trait Boosts Creativity and Intelligence and Slows Aging. A Harvard Researcher Just Explained How to Boost It (Inc., 2024)

• The Tchaikovsky Cure for Worry (The Atlantic, June 2024)

• Arts-based social prescribing comes to Stanford (Stanford Report, Nov 2023)

• New APA Poll: Americans Who Engage in Creative Activities at Least Weekly Report Better Mental Health) (American Psychiatric Association, July 2023)

• The benefits art therapy can have on mental and physical health (Michigan State University, 2023

• What Is Ikigai and How to Apply It to Your Creative Career (Domestika)

• This Conversation Made Me a Better Editor - Adam Moss Interview with Ezra Klein

• Are you An Artist? (The New Yorker, 2024)

• The surprising time of day you’re most creative (Fast Company, Nov 2024)

• Why am I not creatively inspired at work? (It’s Nice That, Oct 2024)

Books:

• 12 Notes On Life and Creativity (Quincy Jones, 2022)

• Bird By Bird (Anne Lamott, 1995) + excerpt on shitty first drafts

• Coaching The Artist Within (Eric Maisel, 2005)

• Creative Demons And How To Slay Them (Richard Holman, 2022)

• Critique As Creative (Liz Lerman & John Borstel, 2022)

• I Heard There Was a Secret Chord (Daniel J. Levitin, 2024)

• Just Kids (Patti Smith, 2010)

• Make Your Art No Matter What (Beth Pickens, 2021)

• Musicophelia (Oliver Sacks (2008)

• Out of Our Minds: The Power of Being Creative (Sir Ken Robinson, 2017)

• The Artist’s Way (Julia Cameron, 1992)

• The Creative Act (Rick Rubin, 2023)

• The Listening Path (Julia Cameron, 2021)

• The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing (Adam Moss, 2024)

• This Is Your Brain on Music (Daniel J. Levitin, 2006)

• Walk & Wonder: A Journal To Spark Curiosity With Every Step (Kate Pocrass, 2024)

• We Need Your Art (Amie McNee, 2025)

• Your Brain on Art (Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross, 2023)

Podcast/Video:

• The case for making art when the world is on fire (Amie McKnee TED Talk, 2025)

• The Consciousness of Creativity: Are Ideas Alive And Do They Choose Us? (Telepathy Tapes, S2E3, Oct 2025)

• How to be More Creative (Hidden Brain podcast, Dec 2024)

• How Does Music Affect Your Brain? (Tech Effects | WIRED, Mar 2019)

Newsletters/Substacks/Orgs/Etc:

• Amie McNee/Inspired To Write

• Arts for Every Body

• Austin Kelon

• Corita Kent’s 10 Rules (with audio)

• Creative Boom

• Creative Commonwealth

• Creative Lunch Club

• Creative Mornings

• Do schools kill creativity? (Sir Ken Robinson 2006 Ted Talk)

• IDEO U

• It’s Nice That

• Museum of Failure

• Society for the Neuroscience of Creativity (SfNC)

• The Creative Independent

• The Creativity Guild

• The Greater Good Science Center

Documentaries:

• Ai Weiwei Never Sorry (2012)

• American Symphony (2023)

• Art & Copy (2010)

• David Bowie The Last Five Years (2017)

• David Lynch: The Art Life (2016)

• Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (2004)

• Muscle Shoals (2013)

• Searching for Sugar Man (2012)

• The Eye Has To Travel (2011)

• Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey (1995)

• Waste Land (2011)

For Laughs :)

• Oregon Air Writers Program (Portlandia Skit, 2024)

• The #1 Child Art Critic (Recess Therapy, 2024)