Spark & Fire: Fuel Your Creativity
Every creative work you’ve ever loved has a hero’s journey behind it. On Spark & Fire, you'll hear creators tell the story of bringing one beloved work to life.
Iconic creatives — like Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz, Pixar director Domee Shi, comedian Patton Oswald, musician Wynton Marsalis, and novelist Isabel Allende — share the endless iterations, the inevitable setbacks, and the breakthrough ideas along the epic process of creation. But this isn’t an interview show. It’s a story — told entirely in the artist's own words.
With host June Cohen, co-founder of WaitWhat and the former executive producer of TED Talks.
Transcripts and images for every episode are available at sparkandfire.com
Sign up for the weekly Spark & Fire newsletter.
- Update frequency
- every 7 days
- Average duration
- 33 minutes
- Episodes
- 38
- Years Active
- 2021 - 2024
How to recover your creative voice: Comedian Patton Oswalt on “Annihilation” & “I Love Everything”
What do you do when you fear you’ve lost touch with your creative voice? You let yourself feel it, and then open yourself up to inspiration.
When comedian Patton Oswalt suddenly lost his wife, he a…
00:39:55 |
Mon 21 Nov 2022
5 ways to get creatively unstuck
You hit a creative dead end. You’re lost in the forest of thought. Let’s face it: you’re stuck. But getting stuck is part of the creative journey.
We hear it in every story on this show. So today, …
00:20:08 |
Mon 14 Nov 2022
Be utterly honest: Musician Ben Folds on “Whatever and Ever Amen”
Capturing an honest moment is one of the riskiest ways to create. But the results are real, and they stand the test of time. As musician Ben Folds tells the story of creating his breakout album “What…
00:38:35 |
Thu 01 Jul 2021
How to spark others: Yo-Yo Ma on the Silk Road Project
The Silk Road Project was an impossibly ambitious, creatively expansive idea to not only create a category of music that had never been heard before, but also create ensembles to perform it, and audi…
00:55:42 |
Thu 24 Jun 2021
Stick with it: "The Queen's Gambit" producers Allan Scott and Bill Horberg
When you fall in love with a project, stay with it – for as many years as necessary. Its time will come. When screenwriter Allan Scott acquired the film rights to the Walter Tevis novel “The Queen’s …
00:34:19 |
Thu 10 Jun 2021
Trust your instinct: Salsa legend Rubén Blades on the iconic song “Pedro Navaja”
“It’s too long. It’s too sad. It’s not danceable.” Just some of the feedback salsa legend Rubén Blades got from DJs and record labels about his iconic song "Pedro Navaja" on the album "Siembra," whic…
00:41:53 |
Tue 01 Jun 2021
Stay authentic to yourself: Randall Park on making "Always Be My Maybe"
How do you create something an audience will love? Start with everything YOU love. Actor Randall Park ("Veep," "Fresh Off the Boat," "WandaVision"…) tells the story of a passion project that's become…
00:35:59 |
Tue 25 May 2021
Create the conditions for your own creativity: Yaa Gyasi on "Transcendent Kingdom"
To make a creative leap, get to know your creative self. After publishing a blockbuster first novel, "Homegoing," followed by a year of touring (and trying to write in hotel rooms), author Yaa Gyasi …
00:23:33 |
Tue 18 May 2021
Play to an elevated purpose: Wynton Marsalis on "The Democracy! Suite"
“Everything you do in the arts gives meaning to your way of life." In a year of pandemic, racial reckoning, and threats to democracy, Wynton Marsalis creates a seven-song cycle that imagines how arti…
00:29:26 |
Tue 11 May 2021
Cultivate a child's sense of wonder: "Knives Out" director Rian Johnson
How do you create deeply imaginative work? There’s a method behind the magic. As Rian Johnson (Last Jedi, Looper, Brick) takes us on the journey of joyfully reinventing the murder-mystery, you’ll hea…
00:38:46 |
Tue 04 May 2021
How to build your creative vision: Photographer Stephen Wilkes on the 2021 Inauguration Photo
Making art is a distillation of all your life experiences – from the half-remembered images from your childhood to your fascination with what's happening around you right now. Photographer Stephen Wi…
00:33:06 |
Tue 23 Feb 2021
Great collabs start with trust: Apollo Theater’s Kamilah Forbes on “Between the World and Me”
"I want to make this into theater, in a way that’s never been done before." When Kamilah Forbes first reads "Between the World and Me," by her friend Ta-Nehisi Coates, she's moved, shaken, gutted by …
00:37:46 |
Tue 09 Feb 2021
Creativity starts with play: Designer Thomas Heatherwick on NYC's The Vessel
How do you change the creative brief? You start with play. The designer Thomas Heatherwick was asked to create a monumental public work for the plaza of vast new development in the heart of Manhattan…
00:35:14 |
Tue 02 Feb 2021
Turn crisis into art: Choreographer Bill T. Jones on “Afterwardsness," his pandemic masterpiece
When faced with a crisis, how do you move forward? Sometimes, you look backward first. It’s March 2020, and legendary choreographer Bill T. Jones is weeks away from a world premiere, when his company…
00:43:29 |
Tue 26 Jan 2021
Turn memory into art: Isabel Allende on “The House of the Spirits”
How do you write the stories of your life? Any time, any place, any order. Isabel Allende was 39, and a refugee from her native Chile, when she started writing a letter to her dying grandfather – rec…
00:38:09 |
Tue 19 Jan 2021
How to find inspiration: Chip Kidd on the "Jurassic Park" book cover
What do you do when you’re stuck? Something else. Designer Chip Kidd got a dream assignment: Create the book cover for a soon-to-be-blockbuster: Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park. Oh, and make it icon…
00:32:43 |
Tue 12 Jan 2021
How to begin: Susan Orlean on "The Orchid Thief"
How do you move past that "wobbly moment" in your creative journey? Just move. From the moment she heard about it, Susan Orlean knew she had to tell the story of "The Orchid Thief" – a wild, true sto…
00:45:40 |
Tue 05 Jan 2021
Oscar winner Pixar's Kemp Powers on "Soul": The best person for the project
How do you create an authentic character? Start with your authentic self. When Kemp Powers joined the writers' room at Pixar, he found a story waiting to be told ... anchored within his own story. Sp…
00:31:50 |
Mon 04 Jan 2021
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