Episode 258: Death, Poetry, and Light

This week on Fable and the Verbivore, we’re sharing an unscripted episode where we touch on creativity and death, poetry, and light.

Over the last year, we’ve done a wide range of topics — from writing about disabilities to writing with empathy —that took a lot of energy and preparation. We’ve also been doing this podcast for almost 5 years and as we celebrate our 250th episode this last month we felt it would be fun to do a series of episodes getting back to our roots of how this first began — through unplanned conversations about life, books, and the writing craft. So, for right now we’re continuing to see where our conversations take us, without planning in advance what we’ll talk about.

This conversation came about from the Verbivore talking about how she and members of her extended family have started to talk about end of life wishes and choices, which led to digging into creativity in that area and what art has helped buoy her spirit as she navigates some difficult and varied feelings during this process.

In this conversation, we talk about death and light and their place in our creative lives. Things like:

  • The Lost Art of Dying by L.S. Dugdale as a tool for preparing to think about end of life wishes and choices

  • Getting into the mindset to write letters with final messages to pass on to those closest to you

  • How poetry (like Mary Oliver’s House of Light) can help lift up and sooth you through difficult and emotionally wrought moments

  • Paying attention to the impact light has on your life and space, and consider how changes could impact your work, mindset, and even mental health

  • Noticing light (both literally and as a metaphor for hope) in storytelling and how making purposeful lighting choices in your stories can add layers of meaning, tension, and interest

Towards the end of this discussion, we talk about a specific scene that Fable’s writing partner wrote where the strike of a match gives a feeling of dread, but also ratchets up the tension by holding back the face of the person for several moments. It serves as an example of how you can orchestrate the feelings of your readers through those choices.

We hope you enjoy this episode and the more improvisational format of this series and that some of our thoughts connect with your own journey! Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Notes:

The Verbivore references several YouTube videos within this episode. They are:

Books and Films Mentioned:

Music from:https://filmmusic.io
‘Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Bethany Stedman