Just a heads up everyone.

These are adults having adult conversations,

so there is the possibility of adult language. Hi everyone and welcome to Magic Lessons, a podcast produced by Maximum Fun.org and

Riverhead Books.

I'm Elizabeth Gilbert and I just wrote this book called Big Magic, Creative Living Beyond Fear.

But even when I was finished with the book, I didn't feel like I was really finished with the subject.

So I wanted to make this podcast where I could take the subject of creativity out into the world and have real

conversations with real people about it.

And that's where magic lessons come from.

And what are magic lessons?

Roadmaps for the path to creativity, the extra nudge we need when we're

feeling stuck in our creative lives.

Hey everyone, welcome to Magic Lessons. I'm Liz Gilbert.

In the last episode I spoke with Betsy in Oregon. She's a painter, a ceramicist, and a high school art teacher by day.

In other words, she does a lot of creativity in her life already, but she's exhausted.

She told us she's simply lost the energy to create things of her own that really means something to her in an intimate way.

I gave her my take on what she might want to do, but I also wanted to talk to one of the most creative and adventurous people I know, my dear friend, the author,

Raya Elias, and get her take on the situation.

Raya Elias, I don't even have time on this podcast to lay out all the different lives that you have lived in the course of your one life, but just to throw out a few labels.

Raya is a musician, a filmmaker, an author, a hairdresser, a real estate agent,

a former heroin addict, ex-junky, an ex-junky, a felon, an ex-felon, and now model citizen, am I leaving out anything major in there?

Lesbian. That's your primary profession.

...