Five Things I’ve Learned about How to Balance a Creative Life with a Family Life

Join us for four candid conversations about the challenges of being partners, parents, and artists.

Balancing the desire to create with the desire to be present for their family is the great, unacknowledged struggle for anyone in the arts. It’s not quite the traditional struggle between work and family; the work of an artist generally isn’t about feeding mouths, but about attempting to feed the soul. It’s an aim that sounds nice on paper, but, in reality, the tension afflicts everyone in the arts.

Please join us as one of our favorite writers, Steve Almond, talks with a quartet of his most accomplished literary friends— Matthew Zapruder, Camille Dungy, Julianna Baggott, and Cheryl Strayed —about how they manage their marriages and their children as they also produce bestselling books and hit TV shows.

In four conversations with Steve, each writer will share their experiences and set out the most essential strategies that have helped them thrive as partners, parents, and and as creative thinkers and artists.

Check out Steve’s introduction to this series below, then get a ticket for a single conversation or – even better – take advantage of a special series pricing for all four sessions. You can view every session live or on-demand.

Steve Almond hosts Five Things I’ve Learned about How to Balance a Creative Life with a Family Life.


Series tickets available now, directly from this page.

Follow the links in the class descriptions below to view personal introductions to every series session. Then:

GET SERIES TICKETS DIRECTLY FROM THIS PAGE: Scroll down, register, and get all access to all four of this fall’s Five Things I’ve Learned about How to Balance a Creative Life with a Family Life sessions – that’s four live online classes for just $90.00. (If you’ve missed a session that’s already taken place, you can view the archive now, or at any time!)

GET AN INDIVIDUAL CLASS TICKET IF YOU PREFER: Click “Learn More” for details of each individual session below, and – if you prefer – purchase an individual ticket for a single session from the page that displays. (If you’ve missed that session live, you can view the archive now, or at any time!)


Julianna Baggott

Julianna Baggott

Five Things I've Learned About

Balancing Family, Writing, and the Work/Life Blur

View the archive of this 90-minute class from writer, producer, and mother Julianna Baggott, and discover the Five Things She’s Learned about the good, beautiful, weirdly-efficient blur that can streamline your life and transform your writing.

Cheryl Strayed

Cheryl Strayed

Five Things I've Learned About

Nurturing Your Artistic Life (While Keeping the Almighty List)

View the archive of this two-hour class from New York Times best-selling author Cheryl Strayed, and discover the Five Things She’s Learned about how to honor your desire to create and see your projects through – even when life’s demands make doing so feel impossible.

Camille Dungy

Camille Dungy

Five Things I've Learned About

Tending the Gardens of Creativity and Motherhood

View the archive of this 90-minute class from celebrated poet, writer, editor, and scholar Camille Dungy, and discover the Five Things She’s Learned about the ways that creativity arises from the soil of our most fundamental relationships – with the land, with our family history, with motherhood, and with our children.

Matthew Zapruder

Matthew Zapruder

Five Things I've Learned About

Honoring Family as a Source of Creativity

View the archive of this 90-minute class from celebrated poet, writer, and professor Matthew Zapruder, and discover the Five Things He’s Learned about honoring family as a source of creative inspiration – about being truthful in the service of mercy and merciful in the pursuit of truth.

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