We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Emily Ann Zisko. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Emily Ann below.
Emily Ann, thank you so much for taking the time to share your lessons learned with us and we’re sure your wisdom will help many. So, one question that comes up often and that we’re hoping you can shed some light on is keeping creativity alive over long stretches – how do you keep your creativity alive?
It’s interesting because I don’t think you can actually kill creativity. I think you can ignore it, or neglect that side of yourself for a while. But inherently, we are all creative animals. I like to think of my creativity as a river flowing through my body headed towards the ocean of my brain and any blockages are like dams along the river. But to get rid of a dam, all you have to do is move aside stones and fallen logs. It doesn’t take forever, it just takes patience. When I sit down to write, I imagine the fluidity of my creativity and that my intrinsic ability to ideate is my most natural state and I let it all go on the page.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
So, 2023 has definitely been the hardest and most rewarding year of my life.
This past summer, I released a six episode web series called PLAY IT BY EAR that I co-wrote, and co-directed alongside my partner Simon Kienitz Kincade and created with our collaborators Dillon Bentlage and Brian Reilly at Karen Twins Productions. The series follows Mila and Lukas (played by me and Bentlage), a young couple struggling to grow together while starting new lives thousands of miles apart. We’ve screened episodes at Dances With Films, HollyShorts and The Nashville Film Festival and the entire series is available to watch on YouTube on the Karen Twins Productions channel. We are currently in development on the second season that will take on an anthology-aspect to the first; we hope to consider the lives of a new couple, spread between new places and experiencing new relationship challenges.
In addition to my work as a filmmaker, I have also co-founded the non-profit arts publication CURRANT JAM this past year. CURRANT JAM is a seasonally released magazine that promotes emerging artists of all mediums. I am the Literary Editor for the publication and am consistently inspired by the amazing writers and poets we get to work with for each issue. Our Winter Solstice Issue 4 is coming out January 6,2024. In addition to slinging mags, we also host live events in Los Angeles such as writing workshops, readings and yoga classes.
And finally – as a writer myself, my work this year has been published in Currant Jam, The Beloit Fiction Journal, and forthcoming in the Los Angeles Review of Books.
It’s been one hell of a year. I write to you now from bed sick with a stress-induced sinus infection. All I can say is that I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished, but I hope to prioritize more time for yoga and meditation in the coming year.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
1. Shut off your inner monologue, go on autopilot and get through your to-do list as quickly as you can without thinking to much about anything until lunch.
2. Ask for what you want from everyone, even the people that don’t listen. So so so much is out in the world just waiting for someone to ask for it to be theirs. I cannot tell you how many times I thought something was a total long shot, but asked for it, reached out to it, and received.
3. Do what you want to do, build the creative life you want to have, don’t wait for it to come to you. When I was just starting out, I felt I had to go through traditional channels to get where I wanted to go but there actually is no such thing as a traditional channel. I wanted to be an interdisciplinary artist but my only frame of reference was Miranda July and she won’t reply to my DMs. Luckily, some really incredible people in my life (not Miranda July, but her too) taught me that nothing matters and there are no rules. The only path forward is your own – don’t waste your time trying to follow someone else’s.
Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?
As a self-proclaimed multi-hyphenate artist, I think about where my strengths and weaknesses are a lot. I have found that I am happiest when I pursue exactly what it is that I am feeling inspired by, even if I have no technical training in that area. I generally think that I can figure it out on the job, and I’m generally right. I have found that almost any skill can be learned independently, it’s just about what I actually care to spend the time and learn. In the past year, I have released basically the equivalent of six short films but I didn’t go to film school and I just learned what the word “aperture” means. With that said, I am bad at a myriad of things. But! And this is my point, I think; I don’t believe that being in the process of continual learning makes one unprofessional or bad at their job. Failure is my best best best bosom friend: we know each other intimately. I don’t think you have to self-flagellate for having weak-points, and I don’t think anyone needs to interrogate and root them out or only do what they know they can do. That sounds self-destructive at worst and boring at best. Rather, I think embracing weakness, not as a means to overcome, but an opportunity to explore, is in all of our best interests.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.currantjam.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emilyannzisko/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEqoAUvJRBfthOZjAgAqpcMZU3aAidH7v
- Other: Karen Twins Website: https://www.karentwins.com/play-it-by-ear
