Living and Sustaining a Creative Life: The Series

Intellect Books has committed to publishing the Living and Sustaining a Creative Life series of books  over a 10 year period starting in 2022.  As the Senior Editor of this series, Sharon Louden has been selecting editors who will choose contributors to their books, all to be distributed by University of Chicago Press (see below).

To learn more about the series, please visit Intellect’s site.

The first in this series was published in April 2022. Storytellers of Art Histories: Living and Sustaining a Creative Life is an anthology amplifying the voices of the figures reshaping art histories across disciplines and a range of fluid practices.

Edited by Yasmeen Siddiqui & Alpesh Kantilal Patel, these essays amplify the voices of those who are reshaping art histories: not only art historians and curators, but also archivists and artists. At the same time, an overwhelming majority of the contributors have fluid practices, which render these categories moot. There is a special focus on gender, race (including Whiteness), class, sexuality and transnationality – all of which are often marginalized in dominant art histories.

Each individual in this book has provided short, often very personal, contributions indicating how they began to become passionate about their practice. The contributors respond in a multitude of surprising ways, appealing equally to people enmeshed in the field through their work and to those simply interested in the field. The stories you will read take various forms – a letter written to a friend, a revisioned grant application, the pastiche of image and text, children’s fables, interviews, co-authored narrative, memoir, manifesto and apology. A number of the writings perform, through a combination of recollected early memory alongside scholarly research, the roots of the theories they explore through publishing, curating and archival work.

Available from University of Chicago Press and Amazon.

“Storytellers of Art’s Histories is distinguished by its effort to transparently perform the mechanics of storytelling as animated in art history. Our commitment to an inter-generational, non-hierarchical approach among the five knowledge-producers (art historian, curator, artist, educator and archivist) that organize the book aims to upend the field’s caste system and open the field up for exploration by a broader base of future practitioners than is usually understood and accepted as possible among undergraduate students looking for fruitful areas of study and work.”
— Alpesh Kantilal Patel

Listen to the Podcast Alpesh produced in Spring 2023, where the following contributors were introduced by his students:

  • Marsha Meskimmon introduced by Marie G Latham.

  • Nana Andusei-Poku introduced by Emma Holter.

  • Regine Basha introduced by Rachel Vorsanger.

  • Miranda Lash introduced by Mayret Rubenstein.

  • Amalia Mesa-Baines introduced by Marisa Marte.

  • Lucy Lippard introduced by Rachael Reynolds.

  • Gloria Sutton introduced by Camila Damico Medina.

  • Chitra Ganesh introduced by Emma Krall.

The second in this series was published in February 2025. Artists as Writers: Living and Sustaining a Creative Life is a collection of essays offering succinct first-person narratives by writers of varied genres about the day-to-day life of writing for a living. Over thirty-two chapters edited by Seph Rodney & Steven G. Fullwood, writers share their insights, offering pathways for others to follow. They delve into how they balance multiple roles, the choices they made, the challenges they faced, and the successes they achieved.

Seph Rodney, PhD, is a former senior critic and opinion editor for Hyperallergic. He has written for the New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, and other publications. His book, The Personalization of the Museum Visit, was published by Routledge in 2019. In 2020 he won the Rabkin Arts Journalism Prize, and in 2022 he won the Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. He co-curated Get in the Game at SF MoMA in 2024.

Steven G. Fullwood is a documentarian, archivist and writer. He is the co-founder of the Nomadic Archivists Project, an initiative that partners with organizations, institutions, and individuals to establish, preserve, and enhance collections that explore the African Diasporic experience. His published works include Carry the Word: A Bibliography of Black LGBTQ Books (2007), To Be Left with the Body (2008), and Black Gay Genius (2014). He is the former assistant curator of the Manuscripts, Archives & Rare Books Division at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. In 1998, he founded the In the Life Archive (ITLA) to aid in the preservation of materials produced by LGBTQ people of African descent housed at the Schomburg Center.

Available from University of Chicago Press and Amazon.

“‘Artists as Writers’ offers accounts of the journeys that thirty-two writers have taken, including what decisions were made; which paths were taken, rejected, and charted; and why. It answers the question: What magic keeps a writer writing?

Writers from Ethiopia, Guatemala, Nigeria, Palestine, Poland, and Sweden, as well as several American artists, contribute their stories. They each provide vividly detailed accounts of the circuitous roads that each individual took to earn the title “writer.” These are richly descriptive stories from writers who write consistently, relating how they came to the writing life, who helped them get there, and what sustains them as writers.”
— University of Chicago Press

On this episode of “In Conversation,” James Campbell of Intellect Books is joined by Seph Rodney and Steven G. Fullwood, co-editors of “Artists as Writers.”

Upcoming publications in the Living and Sustaining a Creative Life series will include the following titles and editors:

  • Academia in the Arts (Sharon Louden)

  • Music (Karlos Rodriguez)

  • Theater (Andrew Borba)

  • Craft (T.B.D.)

  • Feminist (T.B.D.)

  • Artist as Activist (T.B.D.)

  • Collaborations (T.B.D.)

The criteria for inclusion in these books is similar to previous books in the series. Generous thought-leaders will be chosen who lead the way in their field and will share inspired stories that will give readers insight into their lives. Louden's hope is that their examples will be replicated, thereby creating unlimited opportunities for others.

Editors will be strongly encouraged to tour their books, as all are intended to be platforms for conversation by cross-pollinating artists and professionals in each field in order to exchange and share opportunities.

All books will be distributed by University of Chicago Press.
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Senior Editor: Sharon Louden