No Limits: The Zen of Creativity with Natalie Goldberg

Program Description

Through her wildly successful nationwide writing workshops, Natalie Goldberg has become widely celebrated. Keeping her painting a secret for years, she discovered its importance when she tried giving it up to devote herself to writing. “I cut off a real underground stream of mayhem and joy.” An artist with no formal instruction in either writing or painting, Goldberg credits Zen with teaching her “how to paint, how to write and how to be in the world.” Being present, paying attention and painting without thoughts, good or bad, create the “freedom to paint the worst painting in America.” Discover that there are no limits to your creativity with a woman who inspires us all. Goldberg is the author of Banana Rose (Bantam 1996), Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life (Bantam 1996) and Living Color: A Writer Paints Her World (Bantam 1997).

Topics Explored in this Dialogue:

• How to use Zen to paint and write
• How Goldberg discovered painting, and how it helped her writing
• Goldberg’s thoughts on death and dying
• Insights about Ernest Hemingway, especially his non-fiction
• Why there are so many more women writers than painters
• The practical side of creativity
• How Goldberg’s grandfather influenced her creative life
• Realizing we can have more than one creative outlet
• How to fight burn-out using the muse
• America’s fear of art

Program Number: 2662             Host: Michael Toms            Interview Date: 9/23/1997