Q&A with JaNay Brown-Wood: Bring Them Joy

Through my kids screenwriting world, I recently had the pleasure of meeting and reading the delightful writing of award-winning children’s book author JaNay Brown-Wood. Like many of her characters, JaNay exudes a warm, playful energy and has a can-do attitude about all the amazing things she endeavors to do—and overwhelmingly succeeds at, no less! JaNay’s beautiful mission to celebrate diversity and bring positivity into the world is at the heart of her stories about everything from toddlers learning about produce to magical puppies who help kids through tough situations.

q&aLillie GardnerFebruary 29, 2024Comment

Q&A with Nicole Houff: It's a Barbie World

2023 might have become the year of Barbie, but Minneapolis photographer Nicole Houff has been living in her own fantastic Barbie world for sixteen years and counting. It was delightful and inspiring to talk with Nicole about her process, her career trajectory, and how it’s more possible than you might think to follow your dreams.

q&aLillie GardnerSeptember 28, 2023Comment

Q&A with Roxanna Walitzki: Finding Transcendence

Classically trained as a mezzo-soprano, Roxanna Walitzki integrates elements from electronic and ambient music into her art-song arrangements, and uses video to further the reach of classical music. After studying music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and NYU, Roxanna expanded her art-making to photography, modeling and producing.

q&aLillie GardnerMay 17, 2023roxanna walitzki, photography, art song, singer, producing, modelComment

Q&A with Cassandra Rose: Theater and Screenplays and Games, Oh My!

Did you know it’s possible for one person to write 300 plays in just a few years? Or that there are writers who have the fascinating job of adapting romance novels into video games? As soon as I learned these things about the lovely and talented Cassandra Rose, I knew I needed to know more about her creative life.

q&aLillie GardnerFebruary 16, 2023cassandra rose, scripts, screenwriting, audio, theater, austin film festival, digital series, screenplaysComment

Q&A with Madhushree Ghosh: Enjoy

Madhushree Ghosh is a Pushcart-nominated essayist whose work was the 2020 Notable Mention in Best American Essays in Food Writing, and her words have been published in The New York Times, Washington Post, BOMB Magazine, The Rumpus and more. Her braided essay collection Khabaar (“food” in Bengali) is about food’s role in connecting to identity, culture and social justice.

q&aLillie GardnerSeptember 19, 2022madhushree ghosh, food memoir, memoir, creative nonfiction, south asian, indian, immigration, khabaarComment

Q&A with Patty Voje: Show Up for Your Art

It’s Mother’s Day weekend, so let me introduce you to my mother! My mom, Patty Voje, is an incredible artist and go-getter. Alongside her daily role modeling of what it is to be a creative entrepreneur, she’s also an accomplished fine artist and oil painter. She raised my sister Jane and me to be artistically independent and to embrace the highs and lows of the creative life.

q&aLillie GardnerMay 5, 2022patty voje, oil painting, painter, oil painter, creative process, designer, visual art, cows, animal art, fine artComment

Q&A with Nadja Lubiw-Hazard: Fiction Heals

Nadja Lubiw-Hazard recently won the 2021 Siskiyou Prize for Environmental Literature for her short story collection The Life of a Creature. A Toronto-based writer and veterinarian, she talked with me about her dual love of art and science, a writing career that started in the early years of motherhood, and why fiction is her chosen creative space.

Q&A with Jimmy Longoria: Always Say Yes

Chicano artist Jimmy Longoria is known for his colorful, layered style created with thousands of brushstrokes. A recipient of the prestigious Bush Foundation Fine Artist Fellowship, his work is on permanent display in Chicago’s National Museum of Mexican Art. Jimmy’s work also hangs in the homes or offices of United States Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Julián Castro, Keith Ellison, and other prominent politicians and community leaders.

q&aLillie GardnerJanuary 28, 2022artist, painter, chicano, muralist, community, minnesota, picasso, rivera Comment

Q&A with Sugar Vendil: Deconstruct, Construct, Repeat

Sugar Vendil is a New York City-based composer, pianist, choreographer, and interdisciplinary artist who performs her own solo music for piano and electronics and has a keyboard/synth duo with composer Trevor Gureckis. We chatted about Sugar’s processes of trial and error, self-critique, and the ongoing learning that is necessary to art-making.

Q&A with Wenonah Wilms: Persistence Pays Off

Wenonah Wilms is an award-winning screenwriter who won the Austin Film Festival Screenwriting Competition, the Academy Nicholl Fellowship, and a second McKnight Fellowship all in 2018. She’s written over twenty feature-length screenplays and she’s had six short films produced. Wenonah is a member of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, and Native American stories and characters figure prominently in her work.

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