Sorcerers: William Blake

John Fante (1909–1983):John Fante was an American novelist, short-story writer, and screenwriter best known for Ask the Dust and his semi-autobiographical novels featuring Arturo Bandini. Born in Denver, Colorado, to Italian immigrants, Fante grew up in Boulder in a working-class Catholic family. He moved to Los Angeles as a young man, working various jobs while pursuing a literary career. His first published novel, Wait Until Spring, Bandini, appeared in 1938, followed by Ask the Dust in 1939. Although his fiction received critical attention, Fante earned much of his living writing screenplays in Hollywood. His novels explored poverty, ambition, ethnic prejudice, Catholic upbringing, and the lives of immigrants in Depression-era America. Largely overlooked for decades, his work found a new readership when Charles Bukowski called Fante his god. He dictated his final novel, Dreams from Bunker Hill, to his wife Joyce, who helped him complete it in 1982, a year before his death.For More:Ask the Dust-John FanteFull of Life: A Biography of John Fante — Stephen CooperJoin The Creators CollectiveWant to go beyond listening to stories about creators and start living like one? Coming up November 15: MAKE BELIEVE, a masterclass exploring the lives and imaginations of Jim Henson and Fred Rogers, and what these two remarkable men can teach us about taking play seriously.Join The Creators Collective →The Book Club — Coming February 2027What if the next book you joined a club to read was the one you haven't written yet?This February, I'm launching The Book Club, a four-month guided experience for people who have always wanted to write a book but haven't quite gotten around to it. Whether it's a novel, memoir, poetry collection, or something else entirely, we'll move together from the first page toward a finished manuscript. You'll have guidance, encouragement, accountability, and a community of people making their own books alongside you.Enrollment opens in December Join the waitlist now to be among the first to hear when registration opens.Join The Book Club Waitlist →

Ikkyū Sōjun (1394–1481):Ikkyū was a Zen monk, poet and calligrapher. He was probably the unacknowledged son of an emperor. He was handed to a temple at five, trained under a severe teacher on the shores of Lake Biwa, and experienced satori. When he was offered the certificate confirming his awakening, he refused it. He walked away from meditation halls and into sake shops and pleasure quarters. He wrote poetry that was both sacred and profane, fell in love in his seventies and at eighty went back to rebuild the temple in Kyoto.For More:Crow with No Mouth: Ikkyū, 15th Century Zen Master, versions by Stephen BergIkkyū and the Crazy Cloud Anthology, Sonja ArntzenHaving Once Paused: Poems of Zen Master Ikkyū, translated by Kidder Smith and Sarah MesserOne-on-One Creative MentorshipThere is ONE spot left. To apply for one-on-one creative mentorship:APPLY HEREThe Creators CollectiveContinue exploring the creative life through classes, conversation, and community. The next class is MAKE BELIEVE with Jim Henson and Mr. Rogers (November 15 @11am)JOIN THE SALON

Mary Shelley (1797–1851):Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was an English novelist, essayist, and biographer best known for Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), one of the foundational works of science fiction. Shelley lost her mother eleven days after her birth and grew up surrounded by writers, poets, and political thinkers. At sixteen, she ran away to Europe with the married poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, whom she married in 1816. She published her first book, Frankenstein, anonymously when she was twenty, the novel explored the consequences of creating life and abandoning it. Her own life was marked by extraordinary loss: three of her four children died young, and Percy drowned in a sailing accident in 1822, leaving her a widow at twenty-four. She returned to England, where she supported herself and her surviving son through writing, publishing novels including The Last Man (1826), editing her husband's poetry, and producing biographies, essays, and travel literature. She continued writing until her death in 1851.For More:Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus — Mary ShelleyThe Last Man — Mary ShelleyMary Shelley — Miranda SeymourOne-on-One Creative MentorshipThere is ONE spot left. To apply for one-on-one creative mentorship:APPLY HEREThe Creators CollectiveContinue exploring the creative life through classes, conversation, and community. Get the most recent class about Tolkien!JOIN THE SALON

J.R.R. Tolkien (1892–1973):John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was an English writer, philologist, and Oxford professor best known for The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and the mythology of Middle-earth. Born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, Tolkien moved to England as a young child, lost both parents before his teenage years were over, and developed an early fascination with languages, medieval literature, and the ancient legends of northern Europe. He studied at Oxford and served in the British Army during the First World War. After the war, he pursued an academic career studying Old and Middle English while privately inventing languages, histories, and mythologies of his own. In 1938, he challenged a German publisher's demand to establish his Aryan ancestry before translating The Hobbit, and during the Second World War he condemned Hitler's appropriation of the northern traditions he loved. With the publication of The Lord of the Rings in 1954–1955, Tolkien became one of the most influential fantasy writers of the twentieth century. For More:The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien : Edited by Humphrey Carpenter, revised and expanded by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina ScullJ.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography — Humphrey CarpenterThe Silmarillion — J.R.R. TolkienCreate Yourself Alive — Charleston, November 2–3Join Rainier Wylde for the first Create Yourself Alive: a small, intimate, two-day immersion for writers and creators in Charleston South Carolina. Bring your current project, your questions, and whatever you’re ready to begin or bring toward completion. A few places remain.DETAILS AND REGISTRATIONOne-on-One Creative MentorshipTo apply for one-on-one creative mentorship:APPLY HEREThe Creators CollectiveContinue exploring the creative life through classes, conversation, and community. Get the most recent class about Tolkien!JOIN THE SALON

William Blake (1757–1827):William Blake was an English poet, painter, and engraver born in London. He developed a method of relief etching that combined poetry and images on copper plates. His wife, Catherine, helped print and color his books. His major works include Songs of Innocence and of Experience, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and Jerusalem. Drawing on his reported visions and an original spiritual mythology, Blake explored imagination, religious authority, and social injustice. Largely neglected during his lifetime, he became a major figure in English poetry and art.For More:Songs of Innocence and of Experience — William BlakeBlake — Peter AckroydCreate Yourself Alive — Charleston, November 2–3Join Rainier Wylde for the first Create Yourself Alive: a small, intimate, two-day immersion for writers and creators in Charleston South Carolina. Bring your current project, your questions, and whatever you’re ready to begin or bring toward completion. A few places remain.DETAILS AND REGISTRATIONOne-on-One Creative MentorshipTo apply for one-on-one creative mentorship:APPLY HEREThe Creators CollectiveContinue exploring the creative life through classes, conversation, and community. Class on Tolkien THIS SUNDAY!JOIN THE SALON

Jerry Siegel (1914–1996) & Joe Shuster (1914–1992):Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were the writer and artist who created Superman. They met as teenagers at Glenville High School in Cleveland, and created The Superman hoping to make a comic book.. After years of rejection, Superman was finally published in Action Comics #1 in 1938. Siegel and Shuster had sold the rights to the character to Detective Comics for $130. Superman became one of the most recognizable fictional characters in the world, while his creators spent decades fighting for compensation, ownership, and eventually even the restoration of their names to the work. For More:Super Boys: The Amazing Adventures of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster-- Brad RiccaSuperman: The High-Flying History of America’s Most Enduring Hero--Larry TyeWant even more?Create Yourself Alive: November 2-3Join me in Charleston for Create Yourself Alive! It’s a two day immersion for creators who are ready to fully own their calling. This will be a powerful and intimate time.Click here for moreTo apply for one-on-one creative mentorship:GO HEREWant to go beyond listening about creators and actually live like one? Consider joining the next Creators Collective class. This is a gathering for creators who are finished performing indifferently and are ready to make something worthy of their attention.THE SALON

In this episode Rainier explores the myth that art can save us or that making beautiful things necessarily makes us better people. He travels to Córdoba, Spain, following the strange history of the Sarajevo Haggadah, an illuminated Jewish manuscript that survived expulsion from Spain, censorship in Venice, Nazi occupation, and the siege of Sarajevo. What begins as a story about the survival of a beautiful object becomes an investigation into creativity itself and what it means to build toward the kind of world we actually want to inhabit.For More:People of the Book: Geraldine BrooksCreate Yourself Alive: November 2-3Join me in Charleston for Create Yourself Alive! It’s a two day immersion for creators who are ready to fully own their calling. This will be a powerful and intimate time.Click here for more

Mary Renault (1905–1983):Mary Renault was a British novelist best known for her historical fiction set in ancient Greece. Born Eileen Mary Challans in London in 1905, she studied English at St. Hugh’s College, Oxford, before training as a nurse at the Radcliffe Infirmary. There she met fellow nurse Julie Mullard, who became her lifelong partner. Renault worked as a nurse through much of the 1930s and during the Second World War, publishing her first novel, Purposes of Love, in 1939. Her 1947 novel Return to Night won a $150,000 prize from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, giving Renault and Mullard the financial means to move to South Africa in 1948, where they remained for the rest of their lives. Renault published The Charioteer in 1953, a novel centered on relationships between gay men in wartime Britain. She then turned to the ancient world, including the Theseus trilogy. Her books brought together extensive historical research with fictional accounts. Renault was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1959 and continued writing until near the end of her life. She died in Cape Town in 1983 at the age of seventy-eight.For More:The Charioteer: Mary RenaultThe Last of the Wine: Mary RenaultMary Renault: A Biography: David SweetmanTo apply for one-on-one creative mentorship:GO HEREWant to go beyond listening about creators and actually live like one? Consider joining the next Creators Collective class. This is a gathering for creators who are finished performing indifferently and are ready to make something worthy of their attention.THE SALON

In this episode, Rainier goes looking for the myth insisting that talent isn't earned, that it's beyond our control. He traces the story of blues legend Robert Johnson, who allegedly made a deal with the devil for his skill. The search widens to Niccolò Paganini, whose own audiences swore they saw the devil guiding his bow. And then looks at an ancient Greek legend about what happens when we claim to have talent that isn't a gift from the gifts.This is a story spanning three thousand years and asking the question: why do we need someone besides the person to take credit for the work?For More:Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues — Elijah WaldMetamorphoses, Book VI: Arachne — Ovid, trans. A.S. KlineThe Devil's Violinist — dir. Bernard RoseThe Creators Collective:Join us for our next masterclass on Anthony Bourdain and Julia Child, two of the most joyful, most enthusiastic apprentices to mastery this country's ever produced. We're talking about enthusiasm as a discipline, and delight as a skill you can build the same as any other. This is a gathering for creators who are finished performing and ready to make something worthy of their attention. Sign up today.THE SALONTHE RECLAMATIONThis September 13, I'm leading a six-week live immersion called The Reclamation. It's for anyone who senses that some essential part of themselves has been buried beneath expectation, fear, responsibility, or simply years of surviving. Together we'll explore what it means to recover your own creative voice. Through live gatherings, weekly practices, thoughtful prompts, and a community of fellow creators, we'll make room for the life and the creativity that has been waiting for your full attention. If you're ready to reclaim your creative self, I'd love to welcome you.FIND OUT MORE HERETo apply for one-on-one creative mentorship:GO HERE

In this episode Rainier explores the myths of the lone genius and the idea of authorship itself. He travels to Amsterdam to look at the work of Johannes Vermeer, discovering that what is often credited to the master is actually the work of an anonymous hand. The mystery pulls him further into the work of the Dutch realists, eventually taking him to Paris to trace the story of Alexandre Dumas, whose name alone survived a courtroom battle with his uncredited collaborator, Auguste Maquet. What begins as a search for a painter's true intention becomes an investigation into where the whole idea of the solitary author came from, and how recently, and for what reasons, we invented it.For More: Tim's Vermeer — dir. Teller "What Is an Author?" — Michel Foucault, in Language, Counter-Memory, PracticeThe Other Dumas--dir. Safy Nebbou The Creators Collective:Join us for our next masterclass Sunday August 23 at 11am Eastern, on Envy, and its importance as an engine for creative development. This is a gathering for creators who are finished performing and ready to make something worthy of their attention. Sign up today.THE SALONTHE RECLAMATIONThis September 13, I'm leading a six-week live immersion called The Reclamation. It's for anyone who senses that some essential part of themselves has been buried beneath expectation, fear, responsibility, or simply years of surviving. Together we'll explore what it means to recover your own creative voice. Through live gatherings, weekly practices, thoughtful prompts, and a community of fellow creators, we'll make room for the life and the creativity hat has been waiting for your full attention. If you're ready to reclaim your creative self, I’d love to welcome you.FIND OUT MORE HERETo apply for one-on-one creative mentorship:GO HERECorrection: the Cupid painting discussed in this episode is Vermeer's Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, held in Dresden's Gemäldegalerie, not the Rijksmuseum