Well of Creativity

by Natalie Goldberg, Deena Metzger, Keith Jarrett

Researchers, teachers, and authors discuss the nature of creativity and the creative process with New Dimensions Radio host Michael Toms

Genres: Writing

160 pages, Paperback

First published October 31, 1997

About the author

Natalie Goldberg lived in Brooklyn until she was six, when her family moved out to Farmingdale, Long Island, where her father owned the bar the Aero Tavern. From a young age, Goldberg was mad for books and reading, and especially loved Carson McCullers's The Ballad of the Sad Cafe , which she read in ninth grade. She thinks that single book led her eventually to put pen to paper when she was twenty-four years old. She received a BA in English literature from George Washington University and an MA in humanities from St. John's University.

Goldberg has painted for as long as she has written, and her paintings can be seen in Living Color: A Writer Paints Her World and Top of My Lungs: Poems and Paintings. They can also be viewed at the Ernesto Mayans Gallery on Canyon Road in Sante Fe.

A dedicated teacher, Goldberg has taught writing and literature for the last thirty-five years. She also leads national workshops and retreats, and her schedule can be accessed via her website: nataliegoldberg.com

In 2006, she completed with the filmmaker Mary Feidt a one-hour documentary, Tangled Up in Bob, about Bob Dylan's childhood on the Iron Range in Northern Minnesota. The film can be obtained on Amazon or the website tangledupinbob.com.

Goldberg has been a serious Zen practitioner since 1974 and studied with Katagiri Roshi from 1978 to 1984.

Reviews

[Linda Hollingsworth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book contains a collection of interviews with a selection of recognizably creative people in society and/or people who have studied creativity, including a filmmaker and composer, two writers (fiction and nonfiction), a psychotherapist-author, and psychologist. These personal and professional perspectives cast light on the definition of creativity as well as the process and encourages the average person to develop, value, and apply their own creative responses to life's challenges.

[Evolving With Book · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first half of this book, which consists of a collection of interviews, seems trite, but the final two chapters were fascinating.