So, my New Year’s resolution was to put out the first episode of my podcast, “Create with John Fanning.” And here it is…

Below is a transcript of the introductory episode, with links to some of the references I make in the episode. Enjoy!

…go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.

So that
was Kurt
Vonnegut from his book A Man Without a Country. And I’m John Fanning and this is the Create
with John Fanning podcast.

How’s it goin. Howy’re yis all doing out there? So this is my first episode, of my first ever podcast, or more a short introductory episode to let you know who I am, and why I’m doing this podcast.

So, I’m an
author, mostly novels, literary – which is a daft word in itself but seemingly
describes what I write. And as you can probably guess from my accent I’m Irish,
although that’d probably be debated back in Ireland, what with my being married
to an American and after living so long in France.

Anyway, I just got to the states about three months ago, from France where we, myself and my American wife Kerry, founded and ran La Muse, for nearly 20 years. La Muse is a writers and artists retreat in the south of France. We left the south of France and came to Maine, to the Portland area, to be closer to family, but also so our kids could get a better second level education. Like most countries, the second level education from 12 on is not what you might call helpful to the growth of a kids’ creative potential, but I’ll get into school and education in a later episode.

So, primarily this podcast is – which at the beginning will go out every second Thursday of the month and then later, weekly, the more support it gets – so, as I was saying, this podcast is gonna start with “Create”, which is what I’ve tentatively called the book I’ve just finished a first draft of. And as a lot of you probably know, first drafts can be pretty shitty, so sayeth Anne Lamott anyway – by th way, she’s written a book that’s not shitty. It’s called Bird by Bird, a book on writing or on the craft of writing and one of the chapters is actually called The Shitty First Draft if I’m recalling it correctly.

So, I hope that this “Create” book will be an inspiration for this podcast but also that it will work the other way too, that this podcast will be  an inspiration for the book, a way of ironing out the kinks of what I envision as a short, sharp, shock of a book, to inspire people to be creative, to create.

So, why? Why is always the best question, isn’t it? Why did I write this book, and why am I doing this podcast? Well, quite simply to help, to be of service in some way to others. Why? Because creation is not owned by artists and writers.

Yes, not everyone is an artist,