Creativity is the ability to form novel and valuable ideas or works using the imagination. Products of creativity may be intangible or a physical object. Creativity may also describe the ability to find new solutions to problems, or new methods of performing a task or reaching a goal. Creativity therefore enables people to solve problems in new or innovative ways.
A picture book combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format, most often aimed at young children. With the narrative told primarily through text, they are distinct from comics, which do so primarily through sequential images.
Alex Grey is an American visual artist, author, teacher, and Vajrayana practitioner known for creating spiritual and psychedelic artwork such as his 21-painting Sacred Mirrors series. He works in multiple forms including performance art, process art, installation art, sculpture, visionary art, and painting. He is also on the board of advisors for the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics, and is the Chair of Wisdom University's Sacred Art Department. He and his wife Allyson Grey are the co-founders of The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors (CoSM), a non-profit organization in Wappingers Falls, New York.
Julia B. Cameron is an American teacher, author, artist, poet, playwright, novelist, filmmaker, composer, and journalist. She is best known for her book The Artist's Way (1992). She also has written many other non-fiction works, short stories, and essays, as well as novels, plays, musicals, and screenplays.
Links between creativity and mental health have been extensively discussed and studied by psychologists and other researchers for centuries. Parallels can be drawn to connect creativity to major mental disorders including bipolar disorder, autism, schizophrenia, major depressive disorder, anxiety disorder, OCD and ADHD. For example, studies have demonstrated correlations between creative occupations and people living with mental illness. There are cases that support the idea that mental illness can aid in creativity, but it is also generally agreed that mental illness does not have to be present for creativity to exist.
Creative writing is any writing that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary tropes or with various traditions of poetry and poetics. Due to the looseness of the definition, it is possible for writing such as feature stories to be considered creative writing, even though it falls under journalism, because the content of features is specifically focused on narrative and character development. Both fictional and non-fictional works fall into this category, including such forms as novels, biographies, short stories, and poems. In the academic setting, creative writing is typically separated into fiction and poetry classes, with a focus on writing in an original style, as opposed to imitating pre-existing genres such as crime or horror. Writing for the screen and stage—screenwriting and playwriting—are often taught separately, but fit under the creative writing category as well.
Wayne Walter Dyer was an American self-help author and a motivational speaker. Dyer completed a Ed.D. in guidance and counseling at Wayne State University in 1970. Early in his career, he worked as a high school guidance counselor, and went on to run a successful private therapy practice. He became a popular professor of counselor education at St. John's University, where he was approached by a literary agent to put his ideas into book form. The result was his first book, Your Erroneous Zones (1976), one of the best-selling books of all time, with an estimated 100 million copies sold. This launched Dyer's career as a motivational speaker and self-help author, during which he published 20 more best-selling books and produced a number of popular specials for PBS. Influenced by thinkers such as Abraham Maslow and Albert Ellis, Dyer's early work focused on psychological themes such as motivation, self actualization and assertiveness. By the 1990s, the focus of his work had shifted to spirituality. Inspired by Swami Muktananda and New Thought, he promoted themes such as the "power of intention," collaborated with alternative medicine advocate Deepak Chopra on a number of projects, and was a frequent guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show.
James Allen was a British philosophical writer known for his inspirational books and poetry and as a pioneer of the self-help movement. His best known work, As a Man Thinketh, has been mass-produced since its publication in 1902. It has been a source of inspiration to motivational and self-help authors.
Gilbert Luis Ramos Centina III was a Filipino-American award-winning Roman Catholic poet who was the author of nine poetry books, two novels and a book of literary criticism. Respected for his poetry, his works have been anthologized in Philippine high school and college textbooks and published in the Philippines, Spain, Canada and the United States. Besides English, he also wrote in Spanish and in two Philippine languages, Hiligaynon and Tagalog. He received the Catholic Authors Award in 1996 from the Asian Catholic Publishers and the Archdiocese of Manila under Cardinal Jaime Sin. For his body of poetic work in Spanish which over the years "has become an anthroponymic treasure, memory of parishioners, companions and friends who give title to a fresco of earthly life, with its glories and miseries...," he was posthumously awarded the Premio José Rizal de las Letras Filipinas 2020.
A tortured artist is a stock character and stereotype who is in constant torment due to frustrations with art, other people, or the world in general. The trope is often associated with mental illness.
Inspiration is an unconscious burst of creativity in a literary, musical, or visual art and other artistic endeavours. The concept has origins in both Hellenism and Hebraism. The Greeks believed that inspiration or "enthusiasm" came from the muses, as well as the gods Apollo and Dionysus. Similarly, in the Ancient Norse religions, inspiration derives from the gods, such as Odin. Inspiration is also a divine matter in Hebrew poetics. In the Book of Amos the prophet speaks of being overwhelmed by God's voice and compelled to speak. In Christianity, inspiration is a gift of the Holy Spirit.
Antoinette Martignoni was an American artist who developed the "Inner Portrait" process that uses art as a self-help means to see hidden personal potential. Martignoni died in August 2018 at the age of 99.
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom is a self-help book by the author Don Miguel Ruiz. The book outlines a code of conduct based on Toltec teachings that purport to improve one’s life.
Rob Walker is an American journalist, author and educator, whose primary interests include design, business, technology, consumer culture, and the arts.
Stuart Wilde was a British writer. Best known for his works on New Age, self-empowerment, and spirituality, he was also a lecturer, teacher, humorist, essayist, scriptwriter, lyricist, and music producer. He was the author of twenty books including the popular series The Taos Quintet: Miracles, The Force, Affirmations, The Quickening, and The Trick to Money is Having Some.
Self-publishing is the publication of media by its author at their own cost, without the involvement of a publisher. The term usually refers to written media, such as books and magazines, either as an ebook or as a physical copy using print on demand technology. It may also apply to albums, pamphlets, brochures, games, video content, artwork, and zines. Web fiction is also a major medium for self-publishing.
The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life is a nonfiction book about the creative process that was written by Julia Cameron in the first person. The book includes the author's experiences of writing and also has exercises for the reader.
Victo Ngai is an American illustrator raised in Hong Kong. Her work has been described as being highly detailed and precise, referencing comic book drawings, classic children's book illustrations, the work of Japanese painters, and more. Illustrations created by the artist are often considered to contain compelling imagery and unique styling.
A hybrid press is a publishing house which can be broadly defined by its source of revenue. The revenue source of a traditional publisher is through the sale of books that they publish, while the revenue of hybrid publishers comes from both book sales and fees charged to the author for the execution of their publishing services.
Priya Kumar is an Indian motivational speaker and writer. She is an author of 12 books including novels and self-help books. Her works mainly deal with inspirational and spiritual themes. Her book License to Live (2010) was nominated for Vodafone Crossword Book Award in 2010. In 2019, her novel I Will Go with You (2015) was adapted into web television series The Final Call, starring Arjun Rampal, Sakshi Tanwar, Javed Jaffrey.
