David Biespiel cracks open the creative process as he candidly tracks his own development as a writer and challenges traditional assumptions about writing that can stifle creativity. The liberating message: Working past the brink of failure--being free to try and discard and try again--is what allows the creative process to playfully flourish, keeping the spirit open to unexpected discoveries. Both beginning and experienced writers—as well as artists, musicians, dancers, and anyone else on a creative path—will benefit from this elegant, surprising, and fresh perspective.
"Finally, an anti-bullshit book on creativity!"
— James Marcus
"Does for the creative process what Strunk and White did for our approach to grammar and style. Indispensable."
— Marjorie Sandor
"Every Writer Has a Thousand Faces instead of the advice de rigueur, is a well-spring of ideas for how to jump start the creative process, valuable examples of athletic and visual artists who exercise this proposed method, and, perhaps most importantly, oodles of empathy for the writer and artist who is battling their own stuck process and potentially self-doubt or frustration."
— Hazel & Wren
The Adroit Journal
Mackenzie Kozak interviews David about the publication of his major collection, Beautiful Is the World: New and Selected Poems, 1996-2026.
Jennifer Dorner interviews David in the Portland studios of the Attic Institute in anticipation of the release of his fourteenth book.
AWP Writer's Chronicle
Judith Pulman interviews David about poetic forms and the writer in the civic world.
Unorthodox | Tablet
Podcasters Mark Oppenheimer and Stephanie Butnick talk to David about A Place of Exodus about years of spiritual and physical wandering out of Texas.
Poetry
Christian Wiman and Don Share talk with David about his controversial essay, "This Land Is Our Land," an early call for American poets to engage political subjects.
Let's Have a Renaisance | Podcast
David shares lessons collected over many decades in the arts, discusses the critical role that failure plays in creative revelation, and remembers a pivotal moment that shaped his career.
State of Wonder | National Public Radio
April Baer, in 2015, invites David in to talk about poetry and civic life.
Houston Matters | National Public Radio
Craig Cohen sits down with David to discus A Place of Exodus and what he learned by coming back to Texas after a 40 year exile.
Elliott Bay Book Company
Emily Warn speaks with David about the themes of meaning, identity, and home in A Place of Exodus, and what it is about Texas that means so much to him.
David sits down with the host of "Between the Covers" David Naimon to talk about the publication of his twelfth book in 24 years for the book launch of A Place of Exodus: Home, Memory, and Texas.
Palo Alto Jewish Community Center
Tova Birchbaum and Luba Palant speak with David about the meaning of exile in A Place of Exodus.
Jade Ross Sank and Brett Grossman talk with David about the meanings of Exodus in A Place of Exodus.
Addas Israel and Beth El Bethesda
Robin Jacobson and Marge London speak with David about the meaning of exile and home in A Place of Exodus.
David reads from A Place of Exodus and Vanessa Veselka reads from The Great Offshore Grounds, and the two discuss metaphor, place, story-telling.
West Texas Talk | National Public Radio
Corey Lovell speaks with Lannan Fellow David about poetry in a difficult world.
Scout Brobst interviews David on the writing of A Place of Exodus.
Joshua Mensch interviews David about Republic Cafe, and what it means to inhabit the reality of the body politic within one's own skin.
Jane Ciabattari interviews David about the meaning of Texas, and he lists five books, one Play, and one film that should be on everybody's list.
Chicago Review of Books
Ruben Quesada interviews David about curiosity, generosity, and vulnerability in poetry.
Kenyon Review
Fiona Sze-Lorain talks to David about memoir and poetry
David Biespiel discusses his new book, The Education of a Young Poet, with Justin Wymer, about being comfortable in uncertainty, and extending moments in writing.
Book critic Heidi Slowinski asks David twelve questions about the writing of A Place of Exodus.
State of Wonder | National Public Radio
David Naimon chats with David in 2015 about A Long High Whistle on the podcast Gary Shteyngart calls "the most intense and awesome podcast I've ever been a part of."
David discusses the roots for writing A Place of Exodus with Rabbi Sam Cohon.
Oregon State University's alumni magazine interviews David about the words for the journey.
John Ebersole talks with David about the publication of Charming Gardeners.
John Hoppenthaler talks to David about conceptual poetry, political poetry, and his new poems in Republic Cafe.
University of Washington Press Blog
An interview with David about the possibility and impossibility of writing poems.
Kevin Craft introduces David's influence on the role of poets in contemporary American society and the presence of social/political issues in the content of poetry.
A conversation between Joe Milford and David about the revival of Poetry Northwest and the state of poetry.
Kerry Buckley's Q and A with David about the publication of The Book of Men and Women.
Attic Institute of Arts and Letters
David takes questions about the direction of Portland's leading think tank for creativity and creative writing that he founded in 1999.
Sarah Corbett interviews David Biespiel, Mary Szybist, and others.
Jody Page sits down with David to discuss the life of the writer.
David talks about how poets traverse the thresholds of the imagination to bring the gifts of poems to the community.