There’s a saying I’ve heard many times in my writing career journey, both in terms of the stories we write and the relationships we build: “People don’t remember what happened; they remember how it made them feel.” This is true of events too. Austin Film Festival is jam-packed with amazing people, brilliant minds, and incredible projects.

Classically trained as a mezzo-soprano, Roxanna Walitzki integrates elements from electronic and ambient music into her art-song arrangements, and uses video to further the reach of classical music. After studying music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and NYU, Roxanna expanded her art-making to photography, modeling and producing.

No matter the format or the genre, rejection is almost always due to one of a few common missteps. I want to share them so that we can all put our best writerly feet forward—because I, too, am a writer who submits my work to the mysterious realm of Readers who I hope will take my work seriously and consider it for a next step. First, some good news: readers are hoping to be enthusiastic about your work.

Did you know it’s possible for one person to write 300 plays in just a few years? Or that there are writers who have the fascinating job of adapting romance novels into video games? As soon as I learned these things about the lovely and talented Cassandra Rose, I knew I needed to know more about her creative life.

Madhushree Ghosh is a Pushcart-nominated essayist whose work was the 2020 Notable Mention in Best American Essays in Food Writing, and her words have been published in The New York Times, Washington Post, BOMB Magazine, The Rumpus and more. Her braided essay collection Khabaar (“food” in Bengali) is about food’s role in connecting to identity, culture and social justice.

I made a rejections collage. Yes, a real-life collage—the kind of collage you buy a poster board and glue sticks for—of my rejections. Not all of my rejections, but the ones that were easiest for me to find through my Submittable account and old emails. I wanted to write about rejection, and it felt important that I spend quality time with my rejections in order to do so.

It’s Mother’s Day weekend, so let me introduce you to my mother! My mom, Patty Voje, is an incredible artist and go-getter. Alongside her daily role modeling of what it is to be a creative entrepreneur, she’s also an accomplished fine artist and oil painter. She raised my sister Jane and me to be artistically independent and to embrace the highs and lows of the creative life.

Nadja Lubiw-Hazard recently won the 2021 Siskiyou Prize for Environmental Literature for her short story collection The Life of a Creature. A Toronto-based writer and veterinarian, she talked with me about her dual love of art and science, a writing career that started in the early years of motherhood, and why fiction is her chosen creative space.

“Writing is rewriting” gives off a lot of that “practice makes perfect” energy, doesn’t it? It implies that you have to actually, you know, work and struggle. I like writing because in writing I don’t “have to rebuild all the time” in the way I have to do as a musician. But most expert writers seem to agree this is the real work of it all.

Chicano artist Jimmy Longoria is known for his colorful, layered style created with thousands of brushstrokes. A recipient of the prestigious Bush Foundation Fine Artist Fellowship, his work is on permanent display in Chicago’s National Museum of Mexican Art. Jimmy’s work also hangs in the homes or offices of United States Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Julián Castro, Keith Ellison, and other prominent politicians and community leaders.

Whether or not you “believe” in resolutions or the blank slate of the New Year, the idea of stepping back and taking stock of ourselves allows for a useful reflection we might otherwise skip. The dictionary says “to resolve” is “to decide firmly on a course of action.” It’s really just about a little active planning: Who do you want to be? How will you do it?

Sugar Vendil is a New York City-based composer, pianist, choreographer, and interdisciplinary artist who performs her own solo music for piano and electronics and has a keyboard/synth duo with composer Trevor Gureckis. We chatted about Sugar’s processes of trial and error, self-critique, and the ongoing learning that is necessary to art-making.

I try to keep separate notebooks for separate writing worlds: one for screenwriting, one for fiction, one for creative nonfiction, and so on. However, as my creative life has gotten ever crazier, I couldn’t tell you which notebook is which. At least I know I’m not alone. Even Mozart once wrote: “Altogether I have so much to do that often I do not know whether I am on my head or my heels.”

Wenonah Wilms is an award-winning screenwriter who won the Austin Film Festival Screenwriting Competition, the Academy Nicholl Fellowship, and a second McKnight Fellowship all in 2018. She’s written over twenty feature-length screenplays and she’s had six short films produced. Wenonah is a member of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, and Native American stories and characters figure prominently in her work.