Inspired by Positively Present, I’m beginning the #gratitude30 challenge today, during which everyday for the next 30 days I will be expressing gratitude using the following prompts: The first prompt is Growth, and it’s absolutely perfect for getting into the habit of expressing gratitude daily! Lately I’ve been reminiscing about how remarkable 2019 has been,…

Mary Oliver’s book of poems A Thousand Mornings, and a serendipitous mention in a powerful article on Brain Pickings, led me to this gem. It’s a collection of meditations on nature, writing and creativity, and contains a lot of wisdom in sparsely written essays. The essays mostly express the author’s passion for literature, and her…

Last week I was invited to judge a slam poetry competition. Though I gladly accepted the offer, I was also forced to confront the fact that I had not been in touch with poetry since a long time. I had only read a few poems here and there on the internet; it had actually been…

This is my last one from the Austin Kleone trilogy on creativity. I didn’t enjoy it as much as I had enjoyed the other two, and didn’t find it as useful or inspiring as Keep Going, but it does touch upon some very relevant aspects of producing any form of art in the present age….

Keep Going introduced me to Austin Kleone and I decided to explore his other works. I stumbled upon this one, before realising that it’s the third book of a trilogy, and the title intrigued me. To be fair, the title made me uneasy, and the uneasiness stayed until the first few pages until I got…

A few months ago I discovered this series- Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, and I have had a great time falling asleep to tales of heroism and defiance since then, simultaneously discovering amazing women across the world, most of whom are terrific role models to look up to. These stories make for great bedtime…

Austin Kleone has put together 10 simple tips to maintain one’s creativity and sustain a creative life in this quirky, illustrated book called Keep Going. The tips are drawn from the author’s personal life and are easy to execute. They are not radically new, but are things we all need to be reminded of, and…

You probably know the author of this book from his page Incidental Comics. Think of this book as a collection of some of the choicest comics from that page around the process of creative endeavours. The ups and downs involved in creating something, be it any form of art, are beautifully portrayed in this bite…

This is not a book review despite what the title says. I’m supposed to review this book like I do for every book I read, hence the title, but I don’t want to write a review for this particular book; I can’t. I finished it earlier this week, and then sat with my trepidation for…

Simon Van Booy is my favourite living author. I have read and reread most of his books hungrily, and rarely have I been disappointed. Some of his melodic phrases have in fact sunk into my bones. He writes lyrically, bringing up emotions one didn’t know one had, creating unforgettable characters in painfully beautiful stories. But…