This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:01] Laura Camien: Hi friends, I'm Laura Camien.

[0:03] Susan Blackwell: And I'm Susan Blackwell.

[0:04] Laura Camien: And we're the hosts of the Sparkfile Creativity Podcast.

[0:07] Susan Blackwell: We are excited to report that we're accepting applications for the Sparkfile Select Group Creativity Coaching Program, a guided six-month creative adventure.

[0:16] Laura Camien: This program is like a live interactive episode of the Sparkfile Podcast.

[0:22] Susan Blackwell: Facilitated by the two of us, and of course, the occasional inspiring expert or guest maker will investigate topics that directly impact your creativity and productivity.

[0:33] Laura Camien: A select group of participants will design and navigate their own creative roadmaps and support each other to get the work done.

[0:41] Susan Blackwell: Now you might have a specific project you want to tackle, or you might just want a healthy, productive group to engage with in a regular creative practice.

[0:51] Laura Camien: At each week's virtual meetup through activities, accountability, and interaction with a community of peers, we'll lay the groundwork for your creativity to thrive.

[0:59] Susan Blackwell: Show up and do the work, and in six months' time, your creative practice will be on point and your creative project will be well on its way.

[1:07] Laura Camien: As you know, we believe every single person is innately creative.

[1:12] Susan Blackwell: But smart creative people don't go it alone.

[1:15] Laura Camien: If you want to be surrounded by a group of like-minded creatives who are invested in your success, the Sparkfile Select Group Creativity Coaching Program might be just right for you.

[1:27] Susan Blackwell: If this creative mixtape sounds appealing to you, go to thesparkfile.com, click on coaching, and apply.

[1:33] Laura Camien: But do it soon because spots are limited.

[1:36] Susan Blackwell: The Sparkfile podcast may contain profanity and other adult content.

[1:41] Laura Camien: Please use your discretion.

[1:52] Susan Blackwell: I jump in my spark file.

[1:55] Laura Camien: Spark five.

[1:56] Susan Blackwell: To be something that I wanna make or how I wanna be.

[2:01] Laura Camien: I pump it in my spark file.

[2:05] Susan Blackwell: I jump into my sparks.

[2:09] Laura Camien: Let's open up the spark five.

[2:14] Susan Blackwell: Welcome to the Sparks File, where we believe that everyone is creative, but smart creative people don't do it alone.

[2:20] Laura Camien: I'm Laura Camien.

[2:22] Susan Blackwell: And I'm Susan Blackwell.

[2:23] Laura Camien: If you are an OG listener, welcome back, Sparkler.

[2:26] Susan Blackwell: If you're joining us for the first time, know that all are welcome here.

[2:29] Laura Camien: That's right. Whether you put creativity on pause during this time or whether you've clung to it like a lifeline, welcome.

[2:37] Susan Blackwell: But if you're new to us, you may be asking yourself, what exactly is a spark file?

[2:41] Laura Camien: Where do I get one? What do I file in it? These are such good questions.

[2:45] Susan Blackwell: And we do have answers. A spark file is a place where you consistently collect all your inspirations and fascinations.

[2:52] Laura Camien: And here's the deal. We on your behalf are on the lookout for fresh ideas, images, and inspiration that spark creativity and pique curiosity, things that inspire all of us, hopefully, to get up off of our asses and make things like this podcast.

[3:22] Susan Blackwell: Or a deep dive treasure hunt within yourself.

[3:28] Laura Camien: What?

[3:30] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. God, I love a running treasure theme.

[3:34] Laura Camien: I love it.

[3:35] Susan Blackwell: Or a piece of writing that perfectly captures the life of a young artist.

[3:42] Laura Camien: Okay.

[3:43] Susan Blackwell: Every episode, we're gonna reach into the spark file and exchange some sparks.

[3:48] Laura Camien: And from time to time, we're going to talk to some folks who spark us too.

[3:51] Susan Blackwell: And if you're not careful, you might see yourself in someone else's experience.

[3:54] Laura Camien: So without further ado, let's open up the Sparks.

[3:58] Susan Blackwell: The Sparks file.

[4:00] Laura Camien: La la la la la la la la la la la la Sparks File.

[4:04] Susan Blackwell: Hi, Blackwell.

[4:06] Laura Camien: Spark file.

[4:08] Susan Blackwell: I just have one question for everybody listening. Have you registered yet?

[4:10] Laura Camien: Have you registered yet for the New Year's creativity kickoff?

[4:16] Susan Blackwell: And is it going to be a beautiful virtual retreat? Yes, it is.

[4:20] Laura Camien: If you have been living in this pandemic and using this time to assess or reassess your life and what you want to make of it, what a beautiful gift to give yourself or to force someone else to give you to go into 2021 with a fresh vision for what you want to make of your one wild and precious life.

[4:48] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, yes, yes, yes. Thank you, Mary Oliver. With the permission to make creativity a priority.

[4:56] Laura Camien: You know, I know for both of us, we've expressed at certain times during this interesting era that there have been times where we felt, uh, is creativity, you know, does it have to be top of the list? Is it okay? It feels like there are other more important things right now.

[5:15] Susan Blackwell: But as we've discussed, it is such anything more important.

[5:20] Laura Camien: Yeah, nothing is more important than your creativity. Nothing.

[5:24] Susan Blackwell: Um, it can help you. It can help you in so many ways to heal.

[5:28] Laura Camien: Um, and it can bring you some calm, getting into the flow, et cetera. So there's many, many benefits.

[5:36] Susan Blackwell: See episode two episodes back to refer to the many benefits of creativity.

[5:43] Laura Camien: But we're hoping for both ourselves and for all of you that creativity can rise to the top of the list next year.

[5:54] Susan Blackwell: And as you know, we have both said time and again, but it is super helpful to have some support while you are making and creating things.

[6:10] Laura Camien: And um we're if you're so inclined, we're so happy to provide you with that support.

[6:15] Susan Blackwell: So we hope you'll join us. And also it's just gonna be fun, and it really is gonna have more of a feel more like a retreat.

[6:23] Laura Camien: Gosh, is there anything else? Any other updates or whatnot? Chit chat. What are you watching?

[6:30] Susan Blackwell: Oh these days. I'm watching The Undoing with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant.

[6:37] Laura Camien: I'm thrilled that you're watching it because I saw the first episode and I was like, I don't think I have time for this, but I wish somebody would just tell me what this is.

[6:50] Susan Blackwell: That is so funny. That is so funny. I've actually been anxiously awaiting other shows.

[6:56] Laura Camien: And so I've I've I felt like a bit adrift. And you know, at the end of the day, I want something that will take me away. We've talked about this. I'm like, I I'm craving, I want to go to another century. I want to go to a fantasy land that doesn't exist. I've been through the Harry Potters, I've been through the Game of Thrones. Like just take me to another.

[7:18] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. Did you did you get into the Queen's Gambit?

[7:21] Laura Camien: I have not watched that yet. Although it is on my list. I don't know. I'm feeling a resistance, but I will, I think I will watch it. But I'm hearing great things.

[7:30] Susan Blackwell: It's pretty beautiful. I mean, there were things about it that I was like, maybe that seems a little it stretches the I was just like suspension of disbelief.

[7:44] Laura Camien: You're so like, well, a little bit. There were some things that I was like, that's weird. But um there's so much to recommend that series.

[7:53] Susan Blackwell: And where I sort of came out, I was like, I was fascinated by so many pieces of it. If you love mid-century design and clothing and stuff like that, then you're gonna enjoy.

[8:06] Laura Camien: I'll be sparked by that.

[8:08] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. The actress who plays the central character is really, really good.

[8:13] Laura Camien: She's really really good. I've seen her in Peaky Blinders.

[8:17] Susan Blackwell: She was good in that. And um also the remake of Emma most recently.

[8:24] Laura Camien: I have to say that she was lovely and wonderful, but I I saw Emma with Gwyneth Paltrow, you know, at a formative time and kicked off, you know, yeah, a love of Jane Austen, et cetera. So it was it had a pretty high bar to meet.

[8:43] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. Um, but if you're if you know, I a new generation of of people are discovering Emma and Jane Austen for the first time. I thought it was saucy and delicious and done, you know, in a way that is totally appropriate for now.

[8:59] Laura Camien: Well, I will just say in the Queen's Gambit, just off the dome, just off the top, her American accent is phenomenal.

[9:08] Susan Blackwell: Where is she from?

[9:09] Laura Camien: She, I think it's something like she was born in Argentina but raised in the United Kingdom.

[9:15] Susan Blackwell: Wow.

[9:16] Laura Camien: And her her American accent is flawless. And she's just the things she had to master, especially in the realm of chess to play this role are pretty significant.

[9:28] Susan Blackwell: And when it's all said and done, it feels like this extended format movie.

[9:35] Laura Camien: It's like watching a really long movie. So that's that's great. I'm afraid The Crown is starting, The Crown season four is starting.

[9:44] Susan Blackwell: So there'll be that. And then this week, um, his dark materials season two is starting.

[9:51] Laura Camien: The play plan is backed up.

[9:53] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, now there's gonna be now we have a dearth of of um or the the drought of of creative projects that I want to um intake is over, and now I've got like an exciting amount of the word dearth, I know a word that I learned um years ago, and it's slippery to me.

[10:14] Laura Camien: It escapes me.

[10:15] Susan Blackwell: But what you I always think a dearth, the sound of the word makes it sound like a lack, but that's not what it means.

[10:22] Laura Camien: No, no, no, no. I just misused it. So if you go roll tape, go back, I misused it and changed my wording because I had I meant to say the dearth is over.

[10:34] Susan Blackwell: Oh not that there's now a dearth.

[10:37] Laura Camien: So I yeah, I miss you.

[10:39] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. So what does it mean?

[10:40] Laura Camien: Dearth means uh scarcity um or like a lack of it does mean lack and inadequate supply.

[10:48] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. Okay. Wow. It's still that's a slippery word to me. And another word like that is Nadir.

[10:55] Laura Camien: And I have to be like, it's the opposite of zenith.

[10:58] Susan Blackwell: So uh I don't use either one of those words.

[11:02] Laura Camien: What?

[11:03] Susan Blackwell: S T baby.

[11:05] Laura Camien: Um but dearth is one of those words also that if you just say it seven times, it loses all meaning in time.

[11:11] Susan Blackwell: No, no, no you have to say now zenith and nadir. What do they mean?

[11:14] Laura Camien: Zenith is like a high point, yes, right?

[11:17] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[11:17] Laura Camien: And a nadir is like a low point.

[11:20] Susan Blackwell: And I think I've heard some people pronounce it like Nidir.

[11:24] Laura Camien: Um but I I can't but I can say like I'm entering into the zenith of my my um entertainment options of this year.

[11:33] Susan Blackwell: I'm very excited.

[11:35] Laura Camien: I don't know if that it's a high point.

[11:38] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[11:38] Laura Camien: Can I say that? Or no?

[11:39] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, I don't, yeah, I don't know. Now I've misused two words.

[11:43] Laura Camien: Oh, forget it. I'm gonna keep I feel like I misuse words all the time and it's gonna keep happening.

[11:49] Susan Blackwell: Uh sometimes Wes does it, and I find it to be delightful. He'll be in a story and he'll say a word, and I'm like, okay.

[11:57] Laura Camien: Yeah, that word. I'm just curious, like, can we explore that for a minute?

[12:01] Susan Blackwell: And then um it's just we have we have a good time of just experimenting with how a word might be used.

[12:08] Laura Camien: Yeah, there's a few of them that I and I'll look them up. They and they won't stick.

[12:08] Susan Blackwell: They won't stick.

[12:08] Laura Camien: I'll look them up, I'll explore the word to be like, I need to know what that means. I need to hold on to it. And they're so slippery, I can't even think of an example uh besides dearth.

[12:25] Susan Blackwell: There's dearth is a good example, but there I have a few more of them.

[12:29] Laura Camien: And when I sense my brain or my tongue moving towards them when I'm speaking, yes, I am like, let me take a different path because I'm not gonna be able to, I'm not gonna be able to handle this.

[12:42] Susan Blackwell: I have that like there's the there's having it like with the definition of the word, and then there's also having it with the pronunciation of the word. And so there are words that I'll sometimes be headed towards, and I can that exact thing you just described.

[12:56] Laura Camien: I love it.

[12:56] Susan Blackwell: Like you're headed towards it, you could tell my brain's going towards it. Slippery when west. I'm not gonna stick the landing on that. So I'm gonna go ahead and switch to a single backflip and go with a one-syllable word.

[13:10] Laura Camien: You know what I want to say to you about this, and I want to maybe we can make a pact about it.

[13:15] Susan Blackwell: Okay.

[13:16] Laura Camien: Is let's it it sort of falls in line with never. I I think it's really important to never sort of um mock somebody who has mispronounced a word that they've only read but they haven't heard before.

[13:31] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, I think it's I think that's I well, I just think it's shitty to do that because they may not have heard it spoken out loud before.

[13:40] Laura Camien: Yeah, but they've seen it in print and they took it, they take a stab at it. But it it I want to just make a pact with you that it's okay for us to like give it a try and fail at it and and like help each other to learn more better.

[14:01] Susan Blackwell: I feel like we already do that. We have different styles, I think, but somewhere along the line, I learned like my my who whatever one of my professors was just like, you just go for it and you just say it. So if I like if we're doing cold readings, which we you and I find ourselves in the you know, we have the occasion to do.

[14:22] Laura Camien: Yes.

[14:22] Susan Blackwell: Um I'll throw myself into it and just say it confidently and completely inaccurately. Um and you'll you will graciously tell me after the you'll let me go on, and then you know, oftentimes we'll be like, I think that was I think that's said a different way.

[14:40] Laura Camien: Okay, great.

[14:40] Susan Blackwell: I hope you I hope you always feel like I take that note. Um, because I just will throw myself into it. Um I I I think you take that so graciously. I feel like I go into a sh a little mini shame spiral.

[14:55] Laura Camien: And I'm just I in this, it's the same way. I've this is something that I feel like I've been working on since I was a kid. Just being like not everybody can know everything.

[15:06] Susan Blackwell: And it's an opportunity for the for you to learn, Susan, and just not to um I think your tech is really great because you just take a run at it. Whereas I think I run in fear from it instead of just like, I'll give it a spin. You know what I mean?

[15:27] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[15:27] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[15:28] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[15:28] Susan Blackwell: But I think our that makes the pact even more important. We we don't we won't make fun of each other for not knowing something. We'll take a run at things and you know, sort it, sort it later and learn something.

[15:43] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[15:44] Susan Blackwell: As we go.

[15:44] Laura Camien: Yeah, it's fine.

[15:45] Susan Blackwell: As we go, we'll grow as we go. To go the Ben Plat album.

[15:49] Laura Camien: Oh.

[15:51] Susan Blackwell: So listen, would you may I interest you in a fresh spark?

[15:56] Laura Camien: I'll take a spark, please.

[15:58] Susan Blackwell: Okay. So this is an old spark from deep in my spark file that came back to the surface when you and I were having a conversation with a person who had reached out to discuss some private coaching with us. This wonderful person who re-sparked this spark for me is named Barry Bjorn.

[16:15] Susan Blackwell: And I want to thank Barry for this spark. Do you know the writer Helene Hampf? Does that name ring a bell to you?

[16:27] Laura Camien: I cannot say that it does.

[16:30] Susan Blackwell: See, nobody can know everything. I'm so excited to get to share Helene Hampf with you. And there's another great example of I don't know if I'm pronouncing her name correctly. I've heard it pronounced both Helene and Helen. It's spelled like Helene, but the doormen in her building say Helen. So maybe that's correct. But in other contexts, I've heard Helene and Helene. So uh maybe I'll offer you all the pronunciations throughout the course of this, and then the listeners can take a vote on what they like the best.

[17:00] Susan Blackwell: Anyway, um Helene Hampf wrote a number of plays, TV scripts, and books in her life, but she is probably best known for writing 84 Charing Crossroad. You might know and love that book, or you might be aware of the movie, which starred Ann Bancroft as Helene Hampf. It is a book that the real life Helene Hampf wrote about her decades-long correspondence with the employees of a bookstore called Marks and Company.

[17:29] Susan Blackwell: I guess they call it Marks and Co. actually, located at 84 Charing Crossroad in London. While Helene herself was living in New York City. Camps, have you ever bumped into this in your life?

[17:41] Laura Camien: Cool.

[17:41] Susan Blackwell: I have not. I can't wait. This I'm going in completely into the dark. It is for many, it is a beloved book. And as I said, it sort of chronicles this exchange of letters between these people who shared a passion for books.

[17:58] Susan Blackwell: And uh Helene Hamp is a total saucy pants. She is such a funny writer. And even her letters to this bookseller, just her ordering books and then responding to the books that they sent her are so charming. And over the 20 years of this correspondence, that's right, 20 years, the writers of these letters form a real bond.

[18:23] Susan Blackwell: And I have to say reading her books kind of made me fall in love with New York City again and made me want to visit London again.

[18:35] Laura Camien: Yes.

[18:36] Susan Blackwell: And they and furthermore, actually made me want to read again, which I rarely make time for unless it's tied to some professional obligation. Because sometimes as I age and my eyesight is changing, it can sometimes make me feel either sleepy or guilty because I'm not like work like actively working on something.

[19:01] Susan Blackwell: But her books make me want to read, and especially 84 Charing Crossroad. I cannot wait to pick them up.

[19:09] Laura Camien: I can't wait.

[19:09] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, yeah. She is she is really something. She actually, her writing reminds me, it's not exactly, but it there are elements of it that remind me of David Sedaris, and that her voice is so clearly her own.

[19:25] Susan Blackwell: And she's such a funny little ballbuster. Um, there they really do. There, those books are like eating popcorn. They go down so easy. Um, but today I don't want to talk about 84 Chair and Crossroad. I want to talk about a book called Underfoot in Show Business.

[19:43] Susan Blackwell: And I think while I'm talking, you may hear POTUS is on my lap and he's snoring. So occasionally you might get a tiny, tiny dog snore. So Underfoot and Show Business is a book wherein Helene Hampf talks about her early life as a young creative who was lured from her hometown of Philadelphia to her adopted hometown of New York City.

[20:03] Susan Blackwell: And to give you a taste, I just want to read the dedication page to you. Here we go. The day I finished this book, I celebrated by phoning Maxine and Hollywood. Sidebar. Maxine is Helene's best friend since they were both young girls, new in New York City, and Maxine is an actress, just so you know.

[20:23] Susan Blackwell: She goes on. Do you want to hear the dedication? I asked her. Go ahead, said Maxine. So I read it to her. To all the stage-struck kids who ever have or ever will set out to crash the theater. What do you think of it? I asked. It's much too sentimental, said Maxine. Why don't you just dedicate it to me?

[20:42] Susan Blackwell: So what the hell? This book is for Maxine. And then turn page, turn page, and I'd like to read to you a subsequent page with a note to the reader. This is if this these are Helene's words. You may have noticed this book was not written by Noel Coward.

[21:01] Susan Blackwell: It's a book about show business, where fame is the stock and trade, and it's written by a name you've never heard of and probably can't pronounce. There is a simple explanation for this. Each year, hundreds of stage-struck kids arrive in New York determined to crash the theater, firmly convinced they're destined to be famous Broadway stars or playwrights.

[21:21] Susan Blackwell: One in a thousand turns out to be Noel Coward. This book is about life among the other 999 by one of them, signed Helene Hampf.

[21:32] Laura Camien: Wow.

[21:33] Susan Blackwell: So I fucking love this book. I've no, I've I don't, I can't, I was racking my brain to remember how I first got my hands on this book. And I cannot remember if I was just in a bookstore and I when I still went to bookstores and I spotted it, or I could not remember, but I know I've I've had it and I've given it as gifts for 20 years.

[22:03] Susan Blackwell: I mean, I've known about this book for a long time. And I'm gonna do something that I've never done before on the Sparks File.

[22:10] Laura Camien: Okay.

[22:11] Susan Blackwell: I am going to read you one amazingly sparkish chapter from Helene's book, Underfoot and Show Business.

[22:19] Laura Camien: You are not.

[22:21] Susan Blackwell: Here's the thing. This is how in private you and I cams might share a spark with each other. Yes, it's true. And I'm gonna be honest, I was a little nervous to do this because I don't really have permission to do this.

[22:32] Susan Blackwell: But then I noticed there are people reading the whole of 84 Charing Cross Road on YouTube, and those videos have been up for years. So I was like, I'm gonna share the spark, and I'm gonna read from this book. And if necessary, I will cease and desist. But I think that Helene Hampf would get a kick out of it.

[22:53] Susan Blackwell: So I want to tell you, I'm gonna do something right now that will hopefully relieve a little bit of whatever stress you're having. I am online. I'm clicking the hardcover version. I'm adding that to my cart, and I'm purchasing it right now.

[23:09] Laura Camien: Gorgeous.

[23:09] Susan Blackwell: So somebody's getting paid. But hopefully, I just my hope in reading this is if you hate it, fine. But if you love it, I just want to turn you on to the writing of Helene Hampf because I just think she is a dream.

[23:26] Susan Blackwell: She's a little dream boat. Now you have to know that this is a period piece. And this book was originally published, I think, in the 70s and lived much earlier than that. So just bear that in mind. But um, let's enjoy chapter seven.

[23:44] Susan Blackwell: No legs, no jokes, no chance.

[23:48] Laura Camien: So excited.

[23:49] Susan Blackwell: And again, please enjoy the sound, a pod is snoring because I don't plan on cutting around it. So this is what it's like on Sunday afternoon at our house when you've got a dog in your sweatshirt and you're about to sit down with a good book. Here we go.

[24:08] Susan Blackwell: It began in December of 1942, the morning after the opening of a guild flop called The Russian People. Despite the fact that we'd waited up until 4 a.m. for the notices, Joe and I were at work at 10 a.m. as usual, composing ads that would fool the public into thinking the show was a hit.

[24:26] Susan Blackwell: Joe was the theater guild press agent. I was his assistant. Sidespark. I think of you every time I read this came in because of your life in PR. And with Manny, my mentor.

[24:37] Laura Camien: That's right.

[24:40] Susan Blackwell: That's right. It always reminds me of you too. Love it. So here we go. We'd only had four hours' sleep, but we were both wide awake. You couldn't possibly get drowsy in the theater guild press department, not in December.

[24:52] Susan Blackwell: Our top floor offices got whatever heat was left over from the casting department on the floor below, the executive offices on the floor below that, and the theater itself, which was on the ground floor. The Russian people was a ponderous bore about the Nazis and the Russian front.

[25:07] Susan Blackwell: But Joe, like the good press agent he was, had persuaded himself by opening night that it was the greatest thing since Hamlet, and he took the notices hard. So we weren't talking much that morning. We just glumly pulled quotes for the ads.

[25:21] Laura Camien: Pulling quotes worked like this.

[25:25] Susan Blackwell: I'm loving it. If Brooks Atkinson, the Times drama critic, wrote, For the fourth time this season, the Theater Guild has wasted a superb production on a dull and empty play. You pulled out the two good words and printed at the top of your ad.

[25:40] Laura Camien: Came, do you want to say production is what I heard?

[25:45] Susan Blackwell: That's right. Quoted to Atkinson Times. Oh, genius. This sort of thing takes practice, but by the time the Russian people open, we'd had a lot of practice. Not to beat about the bush.

[25:56] Susan Blackwell: The Russian people was the guild's 16th straight flop. It was only the eighth for me. I'd only worked there a year and a half. I got the job when I came back from Dear Trees. Dear Trees, uh, just so you know, Laura is a summer theater that the author had worked at.

[26:12] Susan Blackwell: My agent phoned me one day and said, Miss Hellburn had read my new play and wanted to see me. And the next afternoon I went to Terry's office. Dear, she said, I don't like this play very much, but I wanted to find out how you're getting on.

[26:26] Susan Blackwell: I told her that I was out of work and starving to death, and Terry asked what jobs I'd had. When I mentioned Oscar Serlin's press department and the press agent I'd worked for the season before, she nodded. Joe Height, our press agent, needs an assistant, she said.

[26:41] Susan Blackwell: He's on the fourth floor. Run up and tell him I said you need a job, and you're very bright. So I took the elevator up to the fourth floor attic and went down the hall past the auditor's office to the press department.

[26:52] Susan Blackwell: Lois, Joe's secretary, was sitting in the outer office surrounded by the usual press department litter of newspapers, posters, glossy photos of stars, and albums of press clippings. I asked if I might see Mr. Height, and she told me to go on into the inner office.

[27:08] Susan Blackwell: Joe was sitting with his feet up on the desk reading a newspaper. He had a round Irish face which peered at me above the newspaper inquiringly. Miss Helburn sent me up, I said. She said you need an assistant.

[27:20] Susan Blackwell: I stopped, being too shy to sell myself and waited for him to ask where I'd worked before and whether I knew how to interview stars and write publicity stories for newspapers. I didn't realize the weight of the simple Miss Hellburn sent me up.

[27:35] Susan Blackwell: Well, all right, said Joe resignedly. You want to put your typewriter over there?

[27:40] Susan Blackwell: And he peered into the outer office and pointed to a spot near Lois' desk.

[27:44] Laura Camien: Lois and I got the former assistant's typewriter from the floor of a closet and put it over there.

[27:49] Susan Blackwell: And I was assistant to the Theater Guild press agent.

[27:52] Laura Camien: Wow.

[27:53] Susan Blackwell: Camille, pause. This reminds me of when you went to work at Blue Man Group and you got there to interview, and they were like, "We have a few jobs."

[28:01] Laura Camien: I guess it's so old fashioned.

[28:04] Susan Blackwell: But you actually got hired this way.

[28:06] Laura Camien: It's kind of true. Like you had a conversation with someone, and they were like, "Well, there's a lot. We're growing, and we need some people, and you seem great."

[28:15] Susan Blackwell: And they recognized your—yeah, they recognized something in you. Anyway, this reminds me so much of you. I'm loving it. She's a writer so much.

[28:24] Laura Camien: Okay. This is also just for our listeners, um, you know, edification. I was not alive in 1942.

[28:31] Susan Blackwell: And, uh, this, you know.

[28:33] Laura Camien: But you have worked in NPR in marketing, and you are around.

[28:39] Susan Blackwell: There you go.

[28:40] Laura Camien: Yeah. So going on. Part of my job was to go to all guild openings to help Joe with the critic seating list.

[28:47] Susan Blackwell: And at my first theater guild opening, it was heaven to be standing between Joe and Johnny, the casting director, all of us leaning our elbows onto the broad plush-covered railing behind the last row of seats as the last glittering couples in evening gowns and dinner jackets followed and ushered down the center aisle.

[29:05] Laura Camien: Our eyes swept the packed rows of the first night celebrities, a sea of carefully groomed heads that rolled away to the stage.

[29:14] Susan Blackwell: Then I'm like every blue man show in every city that we opened. That was me. That was definitely me where we see only celebrities and the critics, and we're standing in the back.

[29:27] Laura Camien: Oh my gosh. Okay, keep going.

[29:29] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, and then watching the back of the heads to see how they're enjoying it.

[29:32] Laura Camien: Yes.

[29:33] Susan Blackwell: Then the house lights dimmed and went out. And in the black theater, the footlights gleamed like a golden ribbon along the edge of the dark stage.

[29:41] Laura Camien: And as the curtain slowly rose, I think I stopped breathing. This heady excitement returned with each of the next three openings.

[29:51] Susan Blackwell: Then it wore off. You couldn't possibly assist at the string of disasters the guild produced that season and the next, and retain your starry-eyed enthusiasm for opening nights.

[30:02] Laura Camien: The first show I worked on was Hope for a Harvest, which flopped so badly that the stars, Frederick March and his wife, Florence Eldridge, took an ad in the newspapers the next day with a cartoon of a trapeze artist missing connections with his partner in mid-air and a caption reading, "Oops, sorry."

[30:23] Susan Blackwell: Oh my gosh. Imagine, like, did they—how to get that ad in the paper, they had to know that was coming.

[30:30] Laura Camien: It's smooth sight. I'm sorry.

[30:34] Susan Blackwell: Oh my gosh.

[30:36] Laura Camien: I know. Subsequent accidents included Papa is All, which was Pennsylvania Dutch, Mr. Sycamore, in which Stuart Irwin became a tree in the second act.

[30:49] Susan Blackwell: That is not a misprint, and you did not misread it. And yesterday's magic, in which Paul Muni, as an alcoholic actor, threw himself out the window in the last scene.

[31:02] Laura Camien: Add a couple of ill-fated revivals of classics, a limp comedy called Without Love, which not even Catherine Hepburn had been able to prop up for long.

[31:12] Susan Blackwell: And finally, on this morning in December, the Russian people. Looming up ahead, according to the brochure we'd sent to guild subscribers in 19 subscription cities was a new American folk opera.

[31:25] Laura Camien: Like Porgy and Bess, we assured everybody. It was to be based on an old guild flop, and in true operatic tradition, it was to have a murder committed on stage and a bona fide operatic ballet.

[31:39] Susan Blackwell: Considering our track record on even the most standard fare, this projected opera had given everybody the gym jams.

[31:46] Laura Camien: Cammian, can we please bring the phrase "given everybody the gym jams" back?

[31:53] Susan Blackwell: Yes. Get hashtag Jim Jams trending.

[31:57] Laura Camien: Okay. Oh my God. But it was to be the guild's most expensive venture in years.

[32:02] Susan Blackwell: And the rumor that had reached us that morning put an end to our worries about the folk opera. The rumor was that after 16 flops, the guild was bankrupt.

[32:12] Laura Camien: Word spread from floor to floor that Terry and Lawrence were planning to sell the guild theater and the guild building to pay their debts.

[32:19] Susan Blackwell: When the sale was complete, the theater guild would cease to exist. People from the other departments wandered morosely up to our offices that day to indulge in the usual morning after castigation of the management.

[32:32] Laura Camien: Our attic was ideal for this.

[32:34] Susan Blackwell: This reminds me of your office too. Remember your office up there?

[32:38] Laura Camien: Above the Astro Place in New York City.

[32:41] Susan Blackwell: Yes. Our attic was ideal for this since it was the one place in which Terry and Lawrence could be counted on not to set foot, especially in December.

[32:51] Laura Camien: All day long, the wage slaves from casting, subscription, auditing, play reading, came in to sing the usual litany freely and with feeling.

[33:00] Susan Blackwell: This would not have happened, the litany began, if Terry didn't sit over at the hairdressers letting some floozy pick her plays for her.

[33:07] Laura Camien: If Lawrence didn't lie on the casting couch plucking lofty, expensive ideas out of that goddamn mustache with a vast unconcern for what the public would pay to see.

[33:17] Susan Blackwell: If, when the lofty ideas flopped, the two of them didn't embark on monster economy drives, which consisted of cutting down the number of towels rented weekly for each office and threatening to take the water cooler out of the casting department, because, said Lawrence, too many strangers were drinking our water.

[33:35] Laura Camien: And if, year after year, they didn't insist on selling season tickets in 19 subscription cities for six forthcoming guild productions when they only had four plays under option and disagreed violently about three of them.

[33:49] Susan Blackwell: And so on and so forth. It was an old refrain with lots and lots of verses.

[33:56] Laura Camien: POTUS is snoring so loud right now.

[33:58] Susan Blackwell: Oh, I love it. But on this December day, the tone was particularly bitter.

[34:03] Laura Camien: Not just because December was a very cold month in which to be thrown out of work, but because for all their talk, nobody who worked there was eager to see the theater guild close down.

[34:14] Susan Blackwell: Most of them had been there for years. They remembered the great days of the Lunts, the Shaw openings, and the five-hour O'Neill drama, which the stage doorman was said to have referred to innocently throughout its run as Strange Intercourse.

[34:27] Laura Camien: The real name of the place, Strange Interlude.

[34:30] Susan Blackwell: So Joe and I finished making up the ads, and then he went down to get Lawrence's okay on them, and I went down to get Terry's.

[34:38] Laura Camien: She was in her office in an armchair having tea. Her fluffy white hair was rinsed a deep cerulean blue that season.

[34:45] Susan Blackwell: Her blunt nose and blunt chin were as cheerfully pugnacious as ever. Well, dear, she said when I came in, we seemed to be having a run of bad luck.

[34:54] Laura Camien: I gave her the ads and she read them carefully, glancing at the reviews to check each quote, and then running her eye over all the reviews and murmuring, "I don't know what the boys want."

[35:04] Susan Blackwell: Then she said the ads were fine and handed them back to me, and I started for the door. As I reached it, she said, patting her hair casually, "I noticed Lawrence was first on the program again."

[35:15] Laura Camien: That's twice in a row now, isn't it?

[35:18] Susan Blackwell: If the program for one show read produced by Lawrence Langner and Teresa Hellburn, the program for the next show had to read produced by Teresa Hellburn and Lawrence Langner.

[35:29] Laura Camien: I said I was sure Mr. Langner hadn't been first twice in a row because Joe was always careful to check the last program before we made up the new one.

[35:37] Susan Blackwell: All right, she said agreeably. Just remind Joe, I'm first on the new one.

[35:42] Laura Camien: My gloom evaporated. The Russian people hadn't been the one flop too many after all. We were going to do another one.

[35:50] Susan Blackwell: We read about it the next day in one of the gossip columns. Joe came in with the afternoon dailies and said resignedly, "Terry scooped her own press department again."

[35:59] Laura Camien: She was always scooping us. She never told us anything about a new production for fear that we'd tell somebody in the theater everything is a secret.

[36:08] Susan Blackwell: Then she'd go and confide in some columnist. It appeared that between acts of the Russian people on opening night, she'd told a columnist in strictest confidence that the composer and librettist had finished the new guild opera and that it was to be called Away We Go.

[36:25] Laura Camien: Down the hall, in his cage, Jack, the auditor, floating on a sea of unpaid bills, shouted at anybody who went past, "What do they think they're producing an opera with? What are they using for money?"

[36:37] Susan Blackwell: And the question was indeed pertinent. During the next few weeks, we heard that they were holding backers' auditions and that they had the promise of a third of the money needed from Broadway's biggest single backer, though there were several ifs attached to his promise.

[36:52] Laura Camien: The new year set in, the Russian people closed, and the management plunged on with Away We Go.

[36:58] Susan Blackwell: By the end of January, Joe and I had all the names connected with it. It wasn't your normal operatic cast.

[37:05] Laura Camien: The male lead was to be sung by a young man who played the juvenile in Yesterday's Magic.

[37:10] Susan Blackwell: I love these old show names. They kill me. The juvenile in Yesterday's Magic, and the singing comedian was the ingenue from Papa Is All.

[37:19] Laura Camien: Both were unknown, of course. The leading comic was very well known in the Yiddish art theater, but hadn't done much in English.

[37:25] Susan Blackwell: The score had been composed by the leftover halves of two teams, an operetta lyricist whose composer partner had just died, and a musical comedy composer whose lyricist partner had died, and a Russian ballerina and an Armenian director from Hollywood and our American folk opera was all set.

[37:46] Laura Camien: During February, people from other floors drifted into our office with progress reports. This was, they informed us, the damnedest musical anybody ever hatched for a sophisticated Broadway audience.

[37:58] Susan Blackwell: It was so pure you could stage it at a church social. It opened with a middle-aged farm woman sitting alone on a bare stage churning butter, and from then on it got cleaner.

[38:10] Laura Camien: They did not feel a long sequence of Artie dancing was likely to improve matters on the farm.

[38:16] Susan Blackwell: The purity complained of was obvious on the day of the dress parade. As the girls walked across the stage in their period farm dresses, not an ankle or an upper arm was visible.

[38:27] Laura Camien: I don't even remember seeing a neck. As I left the theater, I heard Lawrence suggest to the costumer that the dresses might be cut a little lower here and there without spoiling the authenticity.

[38:39] Susan Blackwell: The show was to open in New Haven early in March, and Joe went up a few days before the opening to beat the drum for it. He was very worried.

[38:47] Laura Camien: Not about the show. Joe admitted frankly that there was still some work to be done on it, but he believed by the time it opened in New York, it would be the greatest show since Hamlet.

[38:56] Susan Blackwell: What worried him was that some drama editor or some columnist's assistant like Winchell's Rose would sneak up to New Haven and see the show before it was ready.

[39:06] Laura Camien: Capital R ready. As of now, Joe did not feel it was Capital R ready. It was always a producer's worry that somebody in a newspaper's drama department would sneak out of town to a pre-Broadway trial and write a report that would kill the show before it ever opened.

[39:22] Susan Blackwell: But no drama department editor scared them half as much as Winchell's Rose. Walter Winchell's column appeared in cities across the country, including all of the guild's subscription cities, and was immensely influential.

[39:35] Laura Camien: If Winchell's Rose—she must have had a last name, but I never heard her called anything but Winchell's Rose—snuck out of town to see the try-out, the effect might be devastating.

[39:45] Susan Blackwell: Now, this is so funny and interesting because now we live in the age of the internet where there’s nothing sacred. You could be a stand-up comedian trying out new material, somebody records it and puts it up online before you even have a—you know what I mean? Like before they even leave the theater.

[40:01] Laura Camien: Exactly.

[40:02] Susan Blackwell: That's right. That's right. Away We Go opened in New Haven to mild but approving notices.

[40:07] Laura Camien: Pleasant, pretty musical, they said, which cheered us.

[40:10] Susan Blackwell: But about mid-afternoon, a newspaper reporter phoned and left word for Joe to call him as soon as he got back from New Haven. He said he had an important item for Joe.

[40:21] Laura Camien: He didn't sound as if it were anything pleasant.

[40:23] Susan Blackwell: Joe came back to town. I've got to tell you, as I'm reading this, I'm just picturing Manny as Joe and you as Helene, just so you know.

[40:32] Laura Camien: But this must be made into a movie.

[40:35] Susan Blackwell: Joe came back to town full of enthusiasm. The show, he assured us, was great. It had a few weak spots, but they'd all be strengthened in Boston.

[40:43] Laura Camien: Some wiseacre from an afternoon daily had snuck up from New York and had said bluntly that the show was corn and wouldn't last a week on Broadway.

[40:51] Susan Blackwell: But said Joe, Terry and Lawrence were not worried. They knew they had a hit.

[40:57] Laura Camien: Lois gave him the reporter's message and Joe returned the call. He listened for a few minutes, thanked the reporter, and hung up.

[41:04] Susan Blackwell: Then he told us the news. According to the reporter, Winchell's Rose had gone to New Haven and seen the show and had wired Winchell her report on it.

[41:13] Laura Camien: The wire had read, "No legs, no jokes, no chance." Winchell had shown the wire to the backer who had promised a third of the financing, and as a result, the backer was pulling his money out of the show.

[41:27] Susan Blackwell: Joe called Terry and Lawrence in New Haven.

[41:30] Susan Blackwell: They'd heard about the telegram. Joe didn't mention the backer, and neither did they. How they expected to finance the Broadway opening, we still didn't know. But when Joe left for Boston, the show was still scheduled to open there the following Monday and in New York two weeks later. The show opened in Boston to fair notices, not nearly as good as those Boston had given some of our other flops, and certainly not notices you could get last minute financing on. So we still didn't know how the show was to open in New York till Jack tossed us the news casually with our mail the next morning. Terry and Lawrence had sold the guild theater and building to a radio network. Away we go would open on March 31st as scheduled.

So they fucking sold the building to pay for the show. Whoa. That's some high-stakes gambling right there. Wow. Joe phoned from Boston with instructions about the opening night press release to be sent to 10,000 guild subscribers. He said that the whole second act had to be thrown out and that the company was working round the clock on a new second act. With a new second act, Joe felt it would be a really great show. For the next few days, Lois and I were busy addressing envelopes and grinding out 10,000 copies of the press release on the mimeograph machine to tell the world about the new American folk opera. Away we go. We had about 8,000 mimeographed when Joe came back from Boston and broke the news to us that we'd have to throw them all away and start over.

There had been a title change. Nobody, it seemed, liked the title, Away We Go. The composer had wanted to change it to Yesuri. But Joe was thankful to report he'd been talked out of it. The title finally agreed upon, thanks largely to Armina Marshall, Lawrence's wife, who came from Out That Way, was Oklahoma. Oh my It sounds fine to you. You're used to it. But do me a favor and imagine you're working in a theater and somebody tells you your new musical is to be called New Jersey. Oh Maine. To us, Oklahoma remained the name of a state even after we'd mimeographed 10,000 new releases. And despite the fact that Oklahoma appeared three times on each one, we had folded several hundred of them when the call came from Boston.

Joe picked up the phone and we heard him say, Yes, Terry, and all right, dear. And then he hung up. And then he looked at us in the dazed way people who worked at the guild frequently looked at each other. They want, he said in a faraway voice, an exclamation point after Oklahoma. Which is how it happened that far into the night, Lois and I, bundled in our winter coats, sat in the outer office putting 30,000 exclamation points on 10,000 press releases. While Joe in the inner office, bundled in his overcoat, phoned all over town, hunting down and waking up various printing firms and sign painters. We were bundled in our coats because the heat had been turned off by an economy-minded management, now happily engaged in spending several thousand dollars to alter house boards, playbills, ads, three-sheet posters, and souvenir booklets to put an exclamation point after Oklahoma.

New York subscribers having dwindled to a handful after 16 flops, nor did we get any help from the weather. When I woke on the morning of March 31st with a cold, it was snowing. By six that evening, the snow had turned to sleet, and my cold included a cough. As I left the office to go home and climb into a drafty evening dress, Joe took pity on me. I don't need you there, dear. He said, he said. Don't come unless you feel like it. I felt guilty about not going as I ate a quick dinner in a cafeteria. But by the time I'd fought my way home through the sleet, guilt had given way to self-preservation. I undressed and crawled thankfully into bed. In bed, I reached for the wet newspaper I'd brought home and opened it to the theater page.

Our big opening night ad leaped out at me. Oklahoma with the exclamation point. Slowly, surely, with that foggy bewilderment you were bound to feel sooner or later if you worked at the theater guild long enough, I saw that Terry and Lawrence were right about the exclamation point. I did not allow myself to speculate on the insane possibility that they might also be right about such brainwaves as a clean, corn fed musical with no legs and no jokes, and with a score by Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Oh my God. Who'd never collaborated before. A full-blown ballet by an unknown young choreographer named Agnes DeMille, and a cast of unknowns, including Celeste Holm, the Ingenie from Papa Is All.

I switched off the lamp, thinking how typical it was of both this epic and the guild that the notices would appear on the morning of April Fool's Day. I coughed, I pulled up the blankets, and as I drifted off to sleep, said a silent good luck to Alfred Drake, the juvenile from yesterday's magic, who was at that moment strolling out onto the stage of the St. James Theater singing, Oh, what a beautiful morning.

[47:24] Laura Camien: Oh, it's a cry. That you know what just kills me about that? She did all that work and slept through the opening night opening of Oklahoma. Oh my god, the way she crafted that, and just how many opening nights she had been through. So it makes sense. Like, oh my God. At first glance, you might be like, how is it possible that you skipped the opening night of this thing that will become, you know, a classic, and it all makes total sense. That's how it happened. Oh my god. Of course that's how it happened. She is really something, and she was in the trenches. Cammy and it reminds this again. Doesn't it remind you? Is it feels like Paige is torn from your life? It does. I'm like, oh my God, I need to write some stories because it's inspiring.

It's all so like you can be really can feel like when you are as theater people, I think we all could um all of that resonates so deeply. It's in our bones. But here's the thing: you have been present for some extraordinary things. I've been present for some extraordinary things. And you know, what's the difference? She wrote it down. She wrote it down, yes. She's a great writer, but so are you, and so are a lot of people. So I write it down, right? Write it down. So speaking of what has been made of it, the work of Helene Hanff has been adapted into plays, movies, TV movies. In her own life, her writing was the basis for a radio series on the BBC, but I think there is still more to be made of it.

So let's talk about what we make of it. So here's a little what we make of it. Nathan and I, you know, we like to read to each other as just an alternative to watching television in the evening, stuff like that. So we are actually reading 84 Sharing Crossroad to each other. And I read all the women's letters, and then he reads all the passages written by men. So that's so sweet. It's so fun and it's so oh my god, it's so entertaining. Um, there is no audio book of Underfoot and Show Business. Um, our friend Barry Bierne, who I thanked at the beginning of the spark, had the idea of recording it for her friend who is facing a long recovery after a fall. And I thought that is such a wonderful idea.

Yeah. Yes. That is for sure. That would be what a great gift for somebody. Absolutely. And there should be an audiobook of that. My God. I know it's so good. It also reminded me what it was like to be a new artist in a big city. And it made me think about how I had to walk. Oh my god, Camille, I remember having to walk. This sounds like when I was a kid, but it's true. Having to walk 50 blocks because I couldn't scrape together subway fare. Yep. And having like times where I would call the office where I was temping from pay phones because cell phones didn't exist yet. And I'd be like, um, I I'd be like, uh uh, I'm sorry, I'm almost back. I think there's something wrong with the connection. But it's because I would be at an audition and I'd be trying to cover it up.

The other thing I make of it is raw inspiration for life. We are living in a time when the world is in great flux due to this pandemic, and New York, of course, has been especially hit hard, including industries that are dependent on live gatherings like Broadway. It's absolutely unprecedented that long running Broadway shows in long thriving Broadway theaters have been dark for months. And I've been thinking a lot about how this time I think is going to serve as a big reset in a number of ways.

[51:30] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. Because if you were in Hamilton and you've made a different decision during the pandemic about a different tack that you want to take with your life, or if the producers have made some sort of decision, I just think there's going to be a big reset that's going to make room for new talent.

[51:49] Laura Camien: Yeah. I think I completely agree. Yes. There's always turnover in New York as people age and make different life choices. But I think this is going to be a reset that is not gradual. It's going to be big. And I think of all the young Helene Hamps who are going to flow into New York City.

[52:09] Susan Blackwell: When it's safe to do so, yeah.

[52:10] Laura Camien: Yeah, when it's safe to come back. I highly recommend this book because though it is set in a different era, it captures what it's like to get by on very little money in New York City and to really be a working class artist, which I think she was for the majority of her life until much later when her books started to have some success.

[52:33] Susan Blackwell: I think Suze, I think you're so right about that. I think that the energy is what doesn't change. We're talking, like when I when I experienced a similarities in my life, that was the late 1990s, the early 2000s. And we're talking about, you know, 40, 50 years difference. And now, you know, same thing. Like the details might change, the details of how those reviews come out or how quickly they come out.

[53:06] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[53:06] Susan Blackwell: Um, but the energy behind it and what everyone is there for is the same. And the belief and the joy of the arts, the belief in it, like their belief was so strong, they sold the theater in order to keep their business alive, to keep the shows going. I mean, that's like some Hail Mary. That's some Hail Mary, and that's some like belief in the value of theater.

[53:34] Laura Camien: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Um I think just speaking of resets, that this is going to be occurring on the individual level. I think people's routines have been disrupted and they are using this time to assess what they want the next chapter of their lives to be. So, for instance, if you're a New Yorker and you're like, I don't think I want to live in New York anymore, or if you're you've always wanted to live in New York City, but you've never prioritized it or made it here, maybe this is a time to take advantage of a favorable real estate market. Um if you're an actor, you might be thinking about if you want to return to an eight-show a week schedule. If you're a musician, you are gonna ask yourself, do I really want to pick up that instrument again?

If you've always dreamed of being a writer, this is a great time to start taking notes. You're you all who are listening to this, and just being present for the hullabaloo around the opening of a musical like Oklahoma, yeah, that's pretty noteworthy. This time we're living in now is even more noteworthy. So if you've ever wanted to be a writer, this is a really, really good time to start taking notes.

[54:54] Susan Blackwell: Absolutely. Oh my god. Um if you haven't tackled your long-deferred dream of being an artist, an actor, etc., it might mean diving into that. Some people are using this time to consider some really big ideas and some really big dreams, and they're beginning to manifest them. So if I were me or someone else, what I might make of it is considering what do you want to do with your one, this wild and precious life that you have.

[55:25] Susan Blackwell: And not to be a shill, but I'll be a little bit of a shill. If you need help clarifying those big dreams and ideas and setting them into motion, perhaps Laura and I can support you.

[55:37] Laura Camien: Yes.

[55:38] Susan Blackwell: I think you're right. All the ways that we do the New Year's creativity kickoff or private coaching, uh, or keep listening to this podcast. We all need support in our creative endeavors. And we are here to support you in the same way that Helene had her Terry's and her Joes and her Maxines. She had her champions. And uh, and every artist needs their champions. And now, thanks to technology, those champions don't have to be in the same room with you. So that is my very, very weird spark du jour.

[56:17] Laura Camien: Oh my god, I love it.

[56:20] Susan Blackwell: I love it. It really um, I gotta give a shout out to my friend Carl Flanagan, who was one of the like the general managers of that latest incarnation of Oklahoma. And I I'm gonna tag him because I want to make sure that he he probably already knows the origin story of it, but he might not. I want, I want um, I want to make sure he hears this.

[56:41] Laura Camien: How incredible. Like you just think of all of those hidden gems of stories that we do not know. You also have to tag your friend.

[56:50] Susan Blackwell: Is it Carl Flanagan?

[56:52] Laura Camien: Yeah, it's Carl Flanagan, yeah.

[56:54] Susan Blackwell: Chapter one of the book I was just reading from, Underfoot and Show Business is called Flanagan's Law.

[57:00] Laura Camien: Stop it.

[57:01] Susan Blackwell: Are you kidding me? It is. It's called Flanagan's Law, and it's about uh her friend who is a stage manager named Bill Flanagan, and Flanagan's Law of the Theater is no matter what happens to you, it's unexpected. And she goes ahead, she unpacks that in the book. But yeah, so that's fun. If Carl Flanagan has not read that book, Carl Flanagan has got to read that book.

[57:24] Laura Camien: Carl Flanagan, I want to see your name again.

[57:27] Susan Blackwell: Carl Flanagan, you need to read this book. There you go. Um, I'm gonna tag him. This will this will this will be a good reminder to catch up and see what he's up to and what what life choices he's made during this pandemic.

[57:40] Laura Camien: Yes, yes, yes, good reminder.

[57:44] Susan Blackwell: Oh, that was delicious. I'm so happy I ordered that book.

[57:47] Laura Camien: You've already ordered it.

[57:48] Susan Blackwell: I love it. Done.

[57:50] Laura Camien: I love it.

[57:51] Susan Blackwell: Um, as you read it, I think you'll see, and I think a lot of you will see yourselves in her writing on her life. So.

[57:59] Laura Camien: Sparkfile.

[58:02] Laura Camien: Hi, friends. I'm Laura Camien.

[58:04] Susan Blackwell: And I'm Susan Blackwell.

[58:06] Laura Camien: And we're the host of the Sparkfile Creativity Podcast. We are excited to report that we're accepting applications for the Sparkfile Select Group Creativity Coaching Program, a guided six-month creative adventure.

[58:18] Susan Blackwell: This program is like a live interactive episode of the Sparkfile podcast. Facilitated by the two of us, and of course, the occasional inspiring expert or guest maker will investigate topics that directly impact your creativity and productivity.

[58:34] Laura Camien: A select group of participants will design and navigate their own creative roadmaps and support each other to get the work done. Now you might have a specific project you want to tackle, or you might just want a healthy, productive group to engage with in a regular creative practice.

[58:52] Susan Blackwell: At each week's virtual meetup through activities, accountability, and interaction with a community of peers, we'll lay the groundwork for your creativity to thrive. Show up and do the work, and in six months' time, your creative practice will be on point and your creative project will be well on its way.

[59:08] Laura Camien: As you know, we believe every single person is innately creative. But smart creative people don't go it alone. If you want to be surrounded by a group of like-minded creatives who are invested in your success, the Sparkfile Select Group Creativity Coaching Program might be just right for you.

[59:28] Susan Blackwell: If this creative mixtape sounds appealing to you, go to thesparkfile.com, click on coaching, and apply. But do it soon because spots are limited.

[59:38] Laura Camien: And we're back.

[59:39] Susan Blackwell: Oh my god, that was so long.

[59:41] Laura Camien: Oh, that was fun.

[59:42] Susan Blackwell: That was super, super fun. That I it struck me as I was reading it to you, Cammian, that I always when I picture those scenes, I picture you and Manny up in your office.

[59:55] Laura Camien: Like I've cast you in it in my mind, and I didn't realize it until I was reading it to you.

[1:00:01] Susan Blackwell: I love it. It also reminded me of um Liz Gilbert's latest book, City of Girls. Um it's about, you know, kind of that time frame. Um, Broadway in New York, a young, you know, fresh, fresh face arrives on the scene, and she's working backstage, she's not, you know, on the stage.

[1:00:24] Laura Camien: It's really good.

[1:00:25] Susan Blackwell: And it's gonna be made into a movie, too.

[1:00:27] Laura Camien: Wow.

[1:00:28] Susan Blackwell: I forget who's doing it, but you know, probably some heavy hitters. It'll it'll be a good one.

[1:00:32] Laura Camien: That's great.

[1:00:33] Susan Blackwell: That's great.

[1:00:35] Laura Camien: Suze.

[1:00:37] Laura Camien: Um, may I offer you a spark in return?

[1:00:40] Susan Blackwell: Well, don't mind if I do.

[1:00:43] Laura Camien: Partake.

[1:00:44] Susan Blackwell: Oh, that looks delicious.

[1:00:46] Laura Camien: Um, Suze, I've been thinking about secrets lately. And in particular, secrets as a source for inspiration.

[1:00:57] Susan Blackwell: Okay.

[1:00:57] Laura Camien: This is a sidebar. I couldn't help, like in the intro when we were doing the intro, I couldn't help comparing this spark to my previous spark about a treasure hunt. And because at first I was like, oh, this isn't quite as exciting as a treasure hunt. And then I realized, go with me. Secrets are buried treasure deep within us.

[1:01:19] Susan Blackwell: How about that?

[1:01:20] Laura Camien: I'll get behind that.

[1:01:21] Susan Blackwell: It's a stretch, but no, it's not.

[1:01:24] Laura Camien: That's that's but it could be, right. There's there's there's absolutely gold in in those secrets.

[1:01:31] Susan Blackwell: So I've been reflecting on this lately, and I've discovered something about myself. It about secrets. Um, I think you probably know this about me, but there's there's two things really. One, I think I'm a really good person to tell a secret too because I don't judge.

[1:01:49] Laura Camien: Uh huh.

[1:01:50] Susan Blackwell: Oh, what were you gonna say? Something?

[1:01:51] Laura Camien: No, keep talking.

[1:01:52] Susan Blackwell: No, keep talking. I don't judge, yeah, but also I forget.

[1:01:58] Laura Camien: You don't remember.

[1:01:59] Susan Blackwell: I don't care. I mean, I think I think we've talked about it on this podcast, and I think you've forgotten that we talked about it.

[1:02:04] Laura Camien: Probably, probably, right?

[1:02:06] Susan Blackwell: So we already know that.

[1:02:07] Laura Camien: So that's in fairness, yeah.

[1:02:08] Susan Blackwell: No, but in fairness, I don't remember what we've talked about on mic and off mic. So it's possible we've only had this conversation in private, but I think we've talked about it on the live.

[1:02:18] Laura Camien: I feel like we might.

[1:02:18] Susan Blackwell: I I feel like we might. So I could just rephrase that of like, as we all know, I forget. So I that makes me great.

[1:02:25] Laura Camien: That makes me great for a secret.

[1:02:27] Susan Blackwell: Secret keeper, yes.

[1:02:28] Laura Camien: Um, so you don't need to worry about me telling your secret. You're probably more likely to be annoyed with me that I didn't remember.

[1:02:36] Susan Blackwell: Like you may have told me something huge for you, and I don't remember, and I'm sorry about that.

[1:02:41] Laura Camien: Yes, yes.

[1:02:41] Susan Blackwell: Um, but also let's remember that I didn't judge you when you said it.

[1:02:45] Laura Camien: So hey, there's like something good there, right?

[1:02:48] Susan Blackwell: That's right.

[1:02:49] Laura Camien: But if I personally have a secret that I'm excited about, like I am the worst. I cannot wait.

[1:02:56] Susan Blackwell: I can't hold it in.

[1:02:57] Laura Camien: If I like if I buy Wes his holiday gifts and I'm excited, I cannot wait until Christmas morning.

[1:03:05] Susan Blackwell: I spoil it for myself every time.

[1:03:07] Laura Camien: I'll I might be able to wait like a day or two, and then I'm like, I have a secret. I think you're gonna like it. Do you want to know what it is? And it's I'm like, why am I doing this? Why? But I cannot help it. Pretty much all around like me and secrets are not longtime companions for one reason or another.

[1:03:27] Susan Blackwell: And I will also add, as we've talked about on the podcast before, you have no poker face.

[1:03:31] Laura Camien: And so your feelings are not secrets either. If you're feeling something, it is you it colors your voice, it shows on your face, like which is good because when there's something that feels like a little off, it helps us get to the bottom of it faster because it's sort of like you can't hide it.

[1:03:50] Susan Blackwell: I can't hide it, but I also think, um, and I'll get into this a little bit, but I think that has been a choice.

[1:03:58] Laura Camien: Um, go with me.

[1:04:00] Susan Blackwell: Let me put a pin in that for a second and I'll circle back to it.

[1:04:03] Laura Camien: But sure, I I also realize that if I have a secret that I have been keeping from myself, you know, those things. The very moment that I make the realization, I have to remedy it.

[1:04:21] Susan Blackwell: Like I have to confess it, I have to work to fix it, I have to put energy towards that.

[1:04:27] Laura Camien: Like, I guess the best example is like if you if you've made the realization that you want to break up with someone, like I can't sit on that.

[1:04:36] Susan Blackwell: I don't want to break up with Wes. I love him dearly. Um, but I'm just saying, like historically, like if I know that I need to do it, and if I'm in a situation where I know I need to do something, I can't do anything about it, then oh my God, it drives me crazy because I feel like once something is clear to me, and it might be like a revelation in a therapy session or something, it's like a knee-jerk reaction.

[1:04:56] Laura Camien: I once I discover the truth within me, I really can't ignore it.

[1:05:01] Susan Blackwell: I feel like I have to write about it, I have to talk about it, I have to take action about it.

[1:05:06] Laura Camien: And you and I have both written very personal pieces that revealed a secret that we had been holding on to.

[1:05:17] Susan Blackwell: Something about ourselves that had caused us to experience shame of some kind.

[1:05:22] Laura Camien: And by taking the spotlight and shining it directly on that pain point, ooh, it really diminishes its ability to inflict shame or any other negative emotion.

[1:05:36] Susan Blackwell: It sure does.

[1:05:37] Laura Camien: It can be really empowering to reveal that.

[1:05:39] Susan Blackwell: See, you know, name it, name it to tame it, right?

[1:05:42] Laura Camien: Um, and I think actually, so back to what you had just said, I think the moment that I wrote about my secret, that was the moment I realized my purpose, which is truth and authenticity above all else.

[1:05:59] Susan Blackwell: And I have an endless desire to help myself and help other people get to the bottom of their personal truth and learn to express themselves authentically.

[1:06:09] Laura Camien: And once I had a taste of that, I think there was no going back for me.

[1:06:13] Susan Blackwell: And so what you're describing, I'm so happy that you said that, because that is like in meetings in in our work together, like I no longer have a lot of energy invested in the mask.

[1:06:30] Laura Camien: Oh, that you know what I mean?

[1:06:31] Susan Blackwell: Like you can certainly, I certainly watch people and I'm like, wow, you've got a you've got a whole like pretense going on so so well that I don't know what's behind it.

[1:06:43] Laura Camien: And that can serve people for sure.

[1:06:47] Susan Blackwell: Um, I don't, you know, I'm not taking anything away from them, but I realized that once I realize my my purpose about authenticity, like I set that I took the mask off and set it down.

[1:06:59] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:07:00] Susan Blackwell: And now for good or for bad, I can't put it back on.

[1:07:05] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:07:06] Susan Blackwell: Um, but anyway, because of all of that, I've kept a keen eye on creative projects and works of art that that reveal our need to reveal our secrets.

[1:07:19] Laura Camien: And one of those projects is called Post Secret.

[1:07:23] Susan Blackwell: I don't know if you've heard of that.

[1:07:25] Laura Camien: I have.

[1:07:27] Susan Blackwell: Yes, it's so fun. It was created by this community artist named Frank Warren, and he started it in 2004. He started it by printing up like 3,000 self-addressed blank postcards.

[1:07:41] Laura Camien: And he started handing them out.

[1:07:42] Susan Blackwell: He gave like quick simple instructions, and he asked people to share a secret they'd never share before and mail it to him anonymously.

[1:07:52] Laura Camien: Um the idea spread beyond his wildest belief.

[1:07:58] Susan Blackwell: People started to buy their own postcards and mail them to him. They started coming in from all over the country and eventually all over the globe. According to Frank, Postsecret.com is the most visited advertising-free blog in the world.

[1:08:14] Laura Camien: Wow.

[1:08:16] Susan Blackwell: He has now received over half a million secrets.

[1:08:20] Laura Camien: By the way, half a million secrets is also the name of his TED Talk.

[1:08:25] Susan Blackwell: Half a Million Secrets, aptly named.

[1:08:27] Laura Camien: It's a great name for a perfume, too.

[1:08:29] Susan Blackwell: It is half a million secrets.

[1:08:32] Laura Camien: Excuse me while I just spray on half a million secrets.

[1:08:38] Susan Blackwell: Here's just a few things that people have mailed to him.

[1:08:41] Laura Camien: And trigger warning.

[1:08:43] Susan Blackwell: Some of these, you know, um, they're short and concise. However, some of them do um reveal some painful facts.

[1:08:54] Laura Camien: Um, all right.

[1:08:55] Susan Blackwell: So here are some of the things people have mailed to him.

[1:09:00] Laura Camien: I found these stamps as a child, and I have been waiting all my life to have someone to send them to. I never did have someone.

[1:09:11] Susan Blackwell: Here's a new secret. I was sort of hoping to be fired today. Yeah. Secret. I'm contemplating whether to speak now or forever hold my peace. Oh. Interesting. On a Starbucks postcard. I give decaf to customers who are rude to me. Which is awesome. Um, this one is deep. Everyone who knew me before 9-11 believes I'm dead. Do we think that's real? I don't know. But thousands upon thousands of people did go missing that day. And there's a story in there. There's a story in there of someone who used that opportunity to disappear. Just saying. Just saying. Premise, premise of a screenplay. Go. Um secret. The woman you are marrying has cheated on you with at least three people. I know because my husband and I are two of them.

Oh. That is like, you know that fault. Is it Faulkner? Who wrote that short story? Which one? The one about the baby shoes. For sale. Baby shoes never worn. Never worn. Yeah. That comes really close to be. Who wrote who wrote for sale baby shoes never worn? Oh, oh, oh, it was Hemingway. It's Hemingway. I think so. Is close to we read that one more time? Uh-huh. The woman you are marrying has cheated on you with at least three people. I know because my husband and I are two of them. That packs a punch. That's powerful. A new new secret. I purposely fell out of touch with you so that you wouldn't invite me to your wedding. Interesting. That's one way to break up a friendship. Wow. Wow. Uh when people I love leave voicemails on my phone, I always save them in case they die tomorrow.

Oh. And I have no other way of hearing their voice again. Yeah. That one gets me. Because I do save. I save, I have I have messages from my family members. Last one. Um, every time a childhood friend of mine posts to Facebook, I have an urge to message them and ask if they ever had any idea that I was being abused. Oh, God. Yeah. That's heartbreaking, right? It's so funny because they're like little, they really are like for sale baby shoes never worn. It's it's they are concise and miniature stories. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Frank believes that secrets can connect us with our deepest humanity and they can remind us of human dramas of frailty, vulnerability, heroism. And I agree. I also think secrets, ooh, I think they can show us the breadth of humanity, like what we're what we're capable of thinking, what we're capable of doing, what we're capable of surviving. It really goes, it goes really deep to me.

[1:12:17] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:12:39] Susan Blackwell: So every Sunday, Frank posts new secrets to his blog, and thousands of people make reading them a part of their Sunday rituals, which I think is really cool. And that reminded me of the after the election in 2016, artist Matthew Levy Chavez created subway therapy in New York City at the 14th Street Union Square Station. Do you remember this, Suze? It was postcards. I mean, I'm sorry. It was post-its, not postcards. Yes. And it had a similar effect. People were invited to leave a post-it note expressing emotions that they were feeling. Everything from women matter to together we will rise and make America love again. You know, it was gosh, I didn't, I didn't realize that was gonna get me so choked up.

Um, but it's a simple way to encourage self-expression anonymously, yes, but collectively, then you're able to see that you're not alone. And then, Suze, I discovered one hello world. Thanks to our dear friend Austin Sargent for finding this one. Oh my goodness. This project, I think it's been nominated or won a Webby Award. I'm not sure, but it deserves every accolade. This website, onehelloworld.com, is a place where people are invited to call, leave a voicemail about anything on their mind, worries, concerns, secrets. And musician Jared Brickman will write music behind your narrative. He calls it a soundtrack to your thoughts. Huh. And people call in, they talk about what's on their mind, everything from loneliness to sex addiction to not wanting to grow up, anything. Brickman says, for some folks, they don't feel like they have anybody else. And those might be some of the most upsetting ones with such a big, beautiful, populous planet.

[1:14:51] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[1:14:51] Laura Camien: And if you feel like you're in a really vulnerable situation, if you're feeling really vulnerable, you can call in and talk into the dark. And really essential for us to realize just how much alike we all are. According to ideas.t.com, sharing secrets with strangers doesn't put your ego at risk, like sharing with like an intimate like friend does. But Frank Warren points out that sharing secrets anonymously can also be a rehearsal for telling the people that you care about. Ah. Right? It's a way of putting your secrets into words and first of all, admitting it to yourself, and then finding the courage to share it with a stranger. He says at that point, especially if you're getting feedback that makes you realize that your secret is more normal than you might imagine, that can be a way to drop the burden of shame and become ready to share it with a parent, a spouse, a psychiatrist, a friend, or if you're, I'm just adding, if you're an artist, you know, the whole world.

So I say all of this with an abundance of caution. There are reasons that certain secrets may want to or need to stay tucked away. So, and that is okay. But there are times when it's safe to do so that people take the step from talking into the dark to shining a light onto their pain point. And I think these moments can be really powerful and really empowering.

[1:16:49] Susan Blackwell: Which leads me to a documentary about a secret that was kept for 62 years. A secret that formed in 1947 and doesn't get shared until 2009. This is the secret of Terry Donahue and Pat Henschel, two women who kept their relationship and their love a secret from everyone they knew. And the documentary called A Secret Love lets us in on their whole story. It's really amazing. I'm not going to say too much because I don't want to spoil it. I think people really should see it. But um, but just a quick, quick, quick overview. It's so fascinating because it starts in 19, like their love, basically, like it starts in 1943. Um, we're in the middle of World War II. All of the men are being drafted and going getting into the military and fighting.

And women are really counted upon to keep things quote unquote normal back home. Like make sure everyone feels like, oh, life is going on as it would. So women are needed to join the workforce, and they're even needed to provide entertainment, like entertainment that we're all accustomed to, like sports. So in 1942, Philip Wrigley, the chewing gum mogul and the owner of the Chicago Cubs, uh, was distraught over the fact that baseball teams had disbanded due to a lack of players and they were brainstorming what could they do. He came up with the idea for the all-American girls' baseball league.

[1:18:42] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:18:43] Susan Blackwell: And if you've seen a league of their own, of course, you've seen the definitive story about this league of professional women baseball players. However, Suze, I just realized I was talking with Wes about this. I'm like, it's, you know what? There can be more than one movie about this topic, and it can be explored from more than one angle. Of course. And there's an entire generation of people who've not seen that movie. So I'm just I'm just highlighting that spark for someone. Absolutely. There's more, there's more for all of us to learn. But so in this, so in this era in 1943, there's this All-American Girls Baseball League, which at first glance may sound like it's great for the ladies, but we have to remember it's um it's still 1943, and femininity was expected and even regulated.

Their uniforms were created, they were skirts instead of pants. Yes. Um, all of it was centered around making each player as physically attractive as possible. And the women who played on the team had to attend charm school as well. So they might go to practice and then they'd have to go to charm school. And here's a quote right from their charm school guide. When you become a player in the All-American Girls Baseball League, you have certain responsibilities because you two are in the limelight. Your actions and appearance, both on and off the field, reflect on the whole profession. It is not only your duty to do your best to hold up the standard of this profession, but do your level best to keep others in line too.

Though it was never never explicitly stated, historians and players alike say that these types of rules were in place in part to prevent the women from being perceived to be lesbians. Ah that was the big fear. It's like, okay, we can let the ladies play ball, but we can't have anyone think that they're lesbians. So one of the cardinal rules of the league was play like a man, look like a lady. Huh. It is this world that 22-year-old Terry Donahue lived as a catcher and a utility infielder for the Peoria Red Wings. And Terry was on the Red Wings because she like she had played ball with her younger brothers and her family her whole life. Um, and there in 1947, she met Pat Henschel, a woman who would become to be known as Terry's cousin and roommate, but in reality would be her lover for close to 70 years.

[1:21:27] Laura Camien: Wow.

[1:21:28] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. So she was playing in the baseball league. She met um, she met Pat. They fell in love. And then again, I'm not gonna spoil it. I don't want to say anymore. But this film is a really important story of their love and their ability to like survive through incredible odds. And it captures a story told by the people who actually experienced it. When they filmed this, Pat was in her 80s and Terry was in her 90s. Wow. And they really got to tell their own story. And I was just so struck by how incredible it was that they were each able to relinquish the burden of this secret in their lifetime. Right?

[1:22:17] Laura Camien: Yes.

[1:22:18] Susan Blackwell: Yes. They did not take it to their grave. They could have, of course, but I mean, they had held on to the secret for 60 plus years, but they chose to let it go. Wow. And they definitely surprised certain family members. Um, but others of them like put it together in retrospect, and and they worried more about making sure that Pat and Terry knew that they were loved and that there was no judgment. Like Terry's niece, Diana talks very wholeheartedly about her relationship with Auntie Terry, who she had known since birth. Um, in an interview with NPR, she said, we just knew Auntie Terry and Auntie Pat. You know, we thought they were roommates.

[1:23:00] Laura Camien: We knew they had both been engaged to men before and both been with men. No one needed to explain anything to us. So yeah, I think this movie is worth a watch for sure. I marvel at their commitment to each other. And as I mentioned before, I don't think I could keep a secret for 60 years. Um, but then I've been privileged to not have a relationship that our society requires me to keep, that's right, you know. I can't begin to know what they went through, fearing for the loss of their jobs, fearing for the loss of their housing and the loss of their family. Yeah. Um, and so they take us, the movie takes us through some of that, and yet in the end, their love was bigger, like their love was bigger than all of that, thankfully. I love that their life and their love outlasted the requirement of the secret.

[1:24:00] Susan Blackwell: Amen.

[1:24:01] Laura Camien: That's right. I love that.

[1:24:02] Susan Blackwell: That's right.

[1:24:03] Laura Camien: Oh my God. And I love that they navigated, they found a way at every juncture to work, they found workarounds, and that's um, that's incredibly creative. It saddens me that they had to. Um, but I'm glad that they did, and I'm glad that their love survived it. So as I contemplate what do we make of it, I think one, of course, there's many, many creative works that have been inspired by a secret, whether it's an attempt to reveal someone else's secret, like a documentary like The Jinx, or more recent documentaries that set out to tell a truth and discover a family secret, like Three Identical Strangers, which you know, it's three identical brothers separated at birth, and then they come together and meet for the first time and they begin to learn a dark secret of their family. Um, or Mommy Dead and Dearest, which is about a woman who was the victim of her mother's Munchausen by proxy, but she did not know until after her mother died.

[1:25:08] Yeah.

[1:25:09] Laura Camien: Um, so there's, you know, there's no shortage of stories told like that. There's also creative works that are driven by a person's need to take ownership of their personal history, allowing it to empower them. Like just on this podcast alone, we've talked about Honey Boy, where Shia LaBeouf was inspired by events in his past and experiences growing up as a child actor and a stint in rehab that pushed him to tell his story. And we talked about many um secret loves in your spark about Scotty Bowers and the secret history of Hollywood.

[1:25:45] Yeah.

[1:25:46] Laura Camien: And of course, there's been a slew of fictionalized stories that hinge on major secrets being revealed. You know, I mean, there's a million, but family abuse in August: Osage County, uh, fatal mistakes and corruption in All My Sons, uh, lies that we tell ourselves and how we enable other people's lies in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. I mean, there's literally like too many to name, obviously. But it just occurs to me that there's so many ways to use a secret for creative inspiration. And certainly you can come right out and tell it in a straightforward way. But you could also use it in a character's arc in a fictionalized piece. You can write a song about it and have a character express everything that you felt. Or you can make something inspired by your secret and not share it with a single living soul. Just get it up and out of you and out of the way so it doesn't exist as a block for you.

[1:26:51] Yeah.

[1:26:51] Susan Blackwell: I mean, you can send a postcard into PostSecret.com, right?

[1:26:55] Laura Camien: I was gonna say. Whether you share that creativity with anyone else is your choice, and you are entirely empowered to decide. But if you're getting a sense that telling the truth about something, no matter how you choose to do it, might bring you peace, might inspire you, you might want to explore the idea of telling it. Brene Brown talks about how fear and shame need three things in order to grow: secrecy, silence, and judgment. And I'm wondering what happens if we remove all three from the equation. It feels very vulnerable. But Brene also said that vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity.

[1:27:56] Yes.

[1:27:57] Susan Blackwell: So I say we start there.

[1:28:01] Laura Camien: Ah, Cameo, that's gorgeous.

[1:28:04] Susan Blackwell: Secrets.

[1:28:06] Laura Camien: Secrets.

[1:28:06] Susan Blackwell: Secrets.

[1:28:07] Laura Camien: Secrets.

[1:28:08] Susan Blackwell: What an interesting bucket of sparks.

[1:28:11] Laura Camien: There's so much. And I mean, there's so much. As you're talking, you were talking about sort of the what do we make of it portion of our program. And we've talked about this on the podcast before, but what it brings to mind again is for quite a while in television, there was sort of a, I don't know if you want to call it like a guiding principle or a trope that the characters had to have secrets.

[1:28:38] A secret, yeah.

[1:28:39] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[1:28:39] Laura Camien: And so in a sitcom, it could be something like, oh my God, the oven mitt, it's in the turkey, and your boss is gonna be here and it did. And you know, sort of that like farcical trying to keep the boss from discovering the oven mitt in the turkey. And it's sort of like, I'm just like, oh, this wears me out. I don't like people. Like, I didn't like the kind of chronic depiction of people trying. I just got tired of it.

[1:29:00] Yeah.

[1:29:09] Susan Blackwell: Of people trying to keep secrets.

[1:29:10] Laura Camien: And then by the last act of the TV show, it was sort of like, why didn't you just tell me? I didn't, you know, I was just like, oh my God, how many times are we gonna enact this? But then, um, and it also happened in dramas, like lots of secrets and dramas, of course. But we've talked about this on the pod before, but I always think it is so cool how the TV show Ozark, uh, flipped it, and so just when Jason Bateman's character, who's the central character of the show, would be like just like there was no escape. There was no way that his character was gonna get out of it, out of the clutch. He would just start telling the truth, yeah.

[1:29:56] Like straight up, like the truth, and how that was the thing that kept like moving him out of these situations that you were just sure the character could never get out of.

[1:30:08] Yeah.

[1:30:08] Susan Blackwell: So I was, and I when I realized what I was watching with that, I was like, oh, they flipped it. Somebody finally flipped it, and I was so stoked.

[1:30:18] Laura Camien: Yeah, was so stoked. I think if you're a writer, that's the challenge, right? So how to use a secret in a new way, in a surprising way, in a different way.

[1:30:27] Susan Blackwell: Um, which Ozark is a perfect example.

[1:30:32] Laura Camien: I mean, yeah, perfect, yeah.

[1:30:34] Susan Blackwell: Um, but that it that's such an interesting, I have to think more about this. Like what other goodness is in the spark bucket that's labeled secrets.

[1:30:49] Laura Camien: Secrets.

[1:30:50] Susan Blackwell: Well, I think it really um to me, I think it depends on how energized the secret is for you. You know, if it is something that you feel would relieve you of a great pressure, uh both you and I, like I said, we have both created artwork from a secret that I would venture to say is life-changing. I feel for me, there was the moment like before I wrote about it, and then there's everything that happened after.

[1:31:21] Uh-huh.

[1:31:21] Laura Camien: And so I think like there's power in that again, whether you share it with a lot of people or you simply get it up and out of you. You know, that's up to you. But I think either way it can be incredibly empowering. But yeah, I think even those postcards, like if you can go to uh postsecret.com, read a secret, and probably use that as you know a premise for a short story or a premise for a movie or um or for a character. Like there's so it's just a spark, it's a bucket of sparks.

[1:31:58] Susan Blackwell: I'm so glad that you brought postsecret.com to my attention. I remember having the postsecret book when it first came out.

[1:32:06] Laura Camien: Neat, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:32:06] Susan Blackwell: Yes, I think he has written multiple books now.

[1:32:10] Laura Camien: I didn't know that he was still doing it.

[1:32:14] Susan Blackwell: And I'm so stoked because it is, they are like these little works of art. These postcards are really the imagery sometimes is very creative the way that people, the graphic design of them is really creative.

[1:32:34] Laura Camien: So though they're like these little works of art combined with a delectable tiny bite-sized little story, a little peek into the secret life of somebody, I just think it is great.

[1:32:50] Susan Blackwell: It's really, really cool.

[1:32:52] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:32:52] Susan Blackwell: So secrets. I think it's a potential spark source.

[1:32:53] Susan Blackwell: It could be a place if you're harvesting sparks, you might just take a look behind the door in your mind you haven't opened in a while.

[1:33:03] Laura Camien: Uh, see if there's anything in there of interest.

[1:33:05] Susan Blackwell: Maybe there is, maybe there isn't.

[1:33:08] Laura Camien: Um, but I think it's a potential, a

[1:33:03] Laura Camien: Well done.

[1:33:14] Susan Blackwell: Is that it?

[1:33:15] Laura Camien: I think that's it.

[1:33:17] Susan Blackwell: This episode of The Spark File was made on Muncie, Lenape, and Seminole Land. As always, we hope that this podcast put another bunch of sparks in your file. If there is a spark you'd like us to explore, or if you've taken a spark and you've fanned it into a creative flame and you'd like to share it, email us at thesparkfile at gmail.com or submit it through our website, thesparkfile.com. We will even happily take your feedback, but you know the price of admission.

[1:33:45] Laura Camien: First, you have to share a creative risk that you've taken recently. We hope that you'll follow us on social media at The Sparkfile and be sure to subscribe, rate, five-star review this podcast.

[1:33:57] Susan Blackwell: From what I understand, it really does help other listeners find us. And also, if you liked this podcast, we hope you'll share it with people that you love.

[1:34:05] Laura Camien: I R L.

[1:34:06] Susan Blackwell: That means in real life.

[1:34:07] Laura Camien: And if you don't like it, we will gladly refund your prize of admission. If something tickles your fancy and gets your creative juices flowing, we're writing you a forever permission slip to go ahead and make that thing that has been knocking at your door.

[1:34:25] Susan Blackwell: It's your turn to take a spark and fan it into a flame. You know the song.

[1:34:30] Laura Camien: Sing along with us.

[1:34:33] Susan Blackwell: You gotta take it and make it.

[1:34:37] Laura Camien: Bye.

[1:34:38] Susan Blackwell: Bye.

[1:34:39] Laura Camien: Secrets.

[1:34:41] Susan Blackwell: We're not bumped into something that inspires me.

[1:34:46] Laura Camien: Dump it in the Sparks Back.

[1:34:50] Susan Blackwell: Could be something that I wanna make or how I wanna be.

[1:34:55] Laura Camien: I'll pump it in the SparkFlas.

[1:35:00] Susan Blackwell: I jump into my Sparks Bas.

[1:35:03] Laura Camien: Spark.

[1:35:05] Susan Blackwell: Let's open up the Sparkfile.

[1:35:12] Laura Camien: Hi friends, I'm Laura Camien.

[1:35:14] Susan Blackwell: And I'm Susan Blackwell.

[1:35:15] Laura Camien: And we're the hosts of The Sparkfile Creativity Podcast. We are excited to report that we're accepting applications for the Sparkfile Select Group Creativity Coaching Program, a guided six-month creative adventure. This program is like a live interactive episode of The Sparkfile Podcast. Facilitated by the two of us and of course the occasional inspiring expert or guest maker, we'll investigate topics that directly impact your creativity and productivity.

[1:35:43] Susan Blackwell: A select group of participants will design and navigate their own creative roadmaps and support each other to get the work done. Now you might have a specific project you want to tackle, or you might just want a healthy, productive group to engage with in a regular creative practice. At each week's virtual meetup through activities, accountability, and interaction with a community of peers, we'll lay the groundwork for your creativity to thrive.

[1:36:10] Laura Camien: Show up and do the work, and in six months' time, your creative practice will be on point and your creative project will be well on its way. As you know, we believe every single person is innately creative. But smart creative people don't go it alone. If you want to be surrounded by a group of like-minded creatives who are invested in your success, the SparkFile Select Group Creativity Coaching Program might be just right for you.

[1:36:38] Susan Blackwell: If this creative mixtape sounds appealing to you, go to thesparkfile.com, click on coaching, and apply. But do it soon because spots are limited.