“The book is about the opposite of the eureka moment,” says science writer Roberta Kwok about her new book, LOST IN CURIOSITY: Field Notes From Scientists’ Adventures into the Unknown. Join us in a conversation about the difficulties and gifts of showing up day after day. We talk about patience, wrestling with process, and the long slow path to epiphany–in science and in creative endeavors. We talk, too, about how to choose the right people to interview for a book based on research, how the body may or may not be a part of creative process, the possibility that walking is not the most important tool in a writer’s toolbox, and the thrill of collaboration.Roberta Kwok is a science writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, NewYorker.com, Nature, New Scientist, Audubon, and otherpublications. She has received a fellowship from the Knight Science Journalism Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and awards from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Geophysical Union. Before becoming a journalist, Kwok worked in a genetics lab at Stanford University. She lives in the Seattle area and is originally from Canada.

“I didn’t know I enjoyed thinking so much,” says science writer Roxanne Khamsi when asked what surprised her most about writing her first book Beyond Inheritance. “I thought I enjoyed interviewing people and reading research papers and the process of finding the right verb in a sentence. What’s hard for me is once I get into that thinking space, I can’t let go of it.” In this episode we talk about how she made the leap from writing articles to writing a book—and why they are so different. We talk about creating an arc for a book of essays, what to do when the structure for your book isn’t working, letting go of a project once its over, meeting our self critic, the role of obsession in writing a book, the art of going for “the big idea” and how to carry that in a nonfiction book, how writing reflects the author’s personality.

“I use play as kind of a backdoor to talk about tougher subjects,” says poet Kelli Russell Agodon, “but also as a front door for the reader to be able to listen.” Her most recent book, Accidental Devotions, blends humor, vulnerability, aging, the chaos of relationships, and the art of humaning.

Everyone gets stuck. And in this interview with writer and teacher Ramona Ausubel, we talk about why this is normal and practical, usable ways to meet a page when we don’t think we can go on. Drawing from her newest book, Unstuck:101 Doorways leading from the Blank Page to the Last Page, Ramona shares with us why certain strategies work only at certain stages of creative projects. We talk about finding patterns, ways to develop characters and create scenes, different ways to approach different drafts, the half-draft approach, finding opposition and so much more.

A poet and a science writer walk into a podcast—and laugh, tease, joke, uplift, and ask each other tough questions about creative process. In this episode of Emerging Form, the hosts Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer and Christie Aschwanden ask each other some of the questions they like to ask their guests. It’s a raucous, fun episode in which they rib each other as only best friends can do, taking turns being in the hot seat to talk about ambition, how getting older has affected creative practice, sincerity, empathy, curiosity and, of course, wine.

“It feels like a radical practice not to be productive, to allow the space to guide what comes next,” says prolific poet and beloved writing teacher James Crews. “I have tendencies toward control.” In this episode, we talk about the importance of slowing down and doing less, and why a creative practice depends on this. James reads several poems from his new collection, Breathing Room: Poems of Rest and Retreat, and we talk about creating healthy boundaries around productivity, embodiment in a creative practice, and poetry as a spiritual practice.

For thirty years, Dimity McDowelll made a life–and a living–with running and writing about running. Then, for health reasons, she had to stop. In this episode of Emerging Form, we talk with Dimity about how our creative identity is linked with other identities and what to do when that radically changes. We discuss her new book The Twenty-Seventh Mile: How to Smooth the Rough Transition out of Your Running Years, and the difference between writing a book with a partner and writing alone. We talk about embodied writing, the importance of empathy when incorporating other people’s stories, and the challenges of writing about loss.

What’s the secret to making a living doing your art? “There really is no magic trick … spoiler,” says Mason Currey, author of Making Art and Making a Living. But in this episode of Emerging Form, we talk with Currey about what he learned by studying how other creatives across genres, cultures and centuries have made it work. We also talk about his own relationship to creative practice–little tricks and attitude shifts, the importance of repetition and habit, developing trust in our own practice, and which compromises can really harm our creative energy.

“I discovered a narrative though my journaling,” says author, creative coach and workshop leader GG Renee Hill. “Writing is a place I can be raw and honest with myself.” In this episode, we speak with GG about her new book, Story Work: Field Notes on Self-Discovery and Reclaiming Your Narrative.

“Elation and connection” are two of the side effects of communal singing, and for over four decades, Kate Munger has been writing songs to be sung in tender and difficult moments–at the bedside of the dying, in prisons, and now at gatherings to repair democracy. We talk with Kate about what makes a good communal song, her writing process, how song can transform a negatively charged moment, and what are some of the challenges for communal singing in this moment.