Season Two is afoot
Season Two starts June 6!
This season is all about Play as Practice: we’ll dig into the playful roots of creative practice, explore new ways to groove on our creative work, keep that Big Book Energy alive with ABC picks and Little Reviews, and talk with a host of AMAZING creatives about their work.
So glad you’re here; can’t wait to get into Season Two with you!
xx, aa
[ Transcript: Season Two trailer; dialog over music bed ]
[Excerpt from Creative Chat with Kate Welch]
kw: It may not be super-logical to think, like, “Oh, a collaborative brainstorm; there’re too many cooks in the kitchen.” But the right cooks in the right-size kitchen really will make the best dish.
allison arth: Welcome to the Little Oracles podcast, Season Two: Play as Practice.
[Excerpt from Creative Chat with Kate Welch]
aa: How do you know when you have the right cooks and the right-sized kitchen?
kw: Mm. You’ll know the creative collaborators are the right cooks because they are encouraging, but also, the room where you are far from the smartest, cleverest person: those’re the cooks you wanna be in the room with.
aa: This season, we’ll explore how discovery and experimentation, puzzling and solving, making messes and making magic keep us going as career and casual creatives.
[Excerpt from Creative Chat with Suzanne Wallace]
sw: So I was preparing the press kit, and I kept thinking, “We really ought to have a visual asset.” So, one day, I literally made a trailer in secret.
aa: That creator story is, I think, both very common and also not very common because I think people feel kinda scared to do that kind of thing.
sw: I was scared! I made something in secret more than once. [laughs]
aa: [laughs]
sw: I’ve never really been much of a creator, but with video work, it just, like, tapped into this very magical, “creator” feeling that was, like, an instant high. It gave me a total rush.
aa: We’ll dig into creative expression, theory, and perspectives in Everyday Creative audio-essays; keep up that Big Book Energy with Asynchronous Book Club picks, Little Reviews of whatever I'm reading, and loads of other bookish content; and we'll talk with, learn from, and have more than a few laughs with incredible guest creators, makers, and thinkers in Creative Chats.
[Excerpt from Creative Chat with Andrew Gillis]
ag: I often struggled to, like, commit myself to a given craft for long enough; [chuckles] it was very much me needing to, like, sort myself out and develop that discipline – you know, which I was lucky to learn those skills later, and those were the things that really– that made art possible.
aa: Right. Well, what do you think it– it is about game design in that case that kinda pushed you over that hump, as it were, of, like, that craft and that sustained focus, I guess?
ag: Well, I kind of tricked myself into it because–
aa: [laughs]
ag: –I started doing this design work after having worked being, like, a cast member on various roleplaying game streams where I was a performer. So I was kind of immersing myself in the practice of play, and I was just so deep in it at that point that it didn’t feel like a stretch to start producing my own stuff. And I think one of the really interesting things about roleplaying design is that you can, kind of, learn through play, and through the practice of play, you can understand how these games are working, and– and see their moving parts, and that familiarity can then get you grounded and start to develop some skills even if you don’t even realize it.
[Excerpt from Creative Chat with Kate Welch]
kw: I would sneak out of bed in the middle of the night to, like, log on and roleplay in the Star Wars chat room. Got in trouble so many times.
aa: [frustrated teen voice] But Mom, I just need to go to Kashi Station– Tosche Station? I don’t know anything about this! [laughs]
kw: [laughs] “Tosche Station to pick up some power converters!” Yeah, so, it was my community; it was the only place I felt like I was– I was at home. And it felt like, such a, like, nerdy little secret. And, I don’t know; you know, everybody needs to escape into something, and this is just what Baby Kate needed, was to escape into this world.
aa: I can’t wait to share this season with all of you; Season Two, Episode One drops June 6th. Find Little Oracles wherever you get podcasts, follow along on Instagram (at) little oracles, check out the blog at littleoracles.com, and, as always, take care, keep creating, and stay divine!
