🎙 INTERVIEW: The Long Song—Process, Craft, & the Creative Life: In Conversation with Josh Ritter
** This is a LIVE interview with Josh Ritter about the craft of writing and reality of building a creative career.**
How do songs find their shape? How do different art forms—including songwriting, painting, and fiction—speak to one another? And how do you stay attentive to creative work as it changes?
American musician Josh Ritter has spent more than two decades building a body of work that rewards close attention. Across 12 studio albums—and alongside parallel practices in painting and novel-writing—his creative life is shaped by curiosity, craft, and a willingness to let ideas move between forms.
In this conversation, we’ll explore Ritter’s approach to making work across disciplines, with a focus on songwriting and his latest album, I Believe In You, My Honeydew. Together, we’ll talk about the realities of songwriting as a long-term creative practice and how working in multiple forms can sharpen a creative voice.
We’ll also explore:
How songs typically begin for him, and how they surprise him along the way
The role of intuition in shaping songs, written work, and paintings
His Substack publication, Josh Ritter’s Book of Jubilations
How a creative practice evolves over time
Staying open to discovery across a long creative career
About Josh Ritter
Josh Ritter is a renowned singer, songwriter, musician, artist and best-selling author. One of today’s most thoughtful and prolific voices, he has released eleven studio albums including 2019’s widely acclaimed ‘Fever Breaks’ of which NPR Music praised, “He remains a hydrant of ideas while embodying an endless capacity for empathy and indignation, often within a single song.”
His twelfth studio album ‘I Believe in You, My Honeydew’ is out now. Two-plus decades into his celebrated career, Ritter has written music that has transcended generations including luminaries such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Bob Weir covering his songs.
In addition to his work as a musician, Ritter is also a national best-selling author, having released two novels to date: 2021’s The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All and 2011’s Bright’s Passage. Released to critical attention, Stephen King wrote in The New York Times Book Review that Bright’s Passage “shines with a compressed lyricism that recalls Ray Bradbury in his prime…This is the work of a gifted novelist.”
“Josh Ritter remains at the top of his game two decades into a highlight-strewn career. He’d be forgiven for loosening his grip, but his hand has never felt surer.”
- NPR Music
“Harking back to Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and maybe a little Mark Knopfler, Mr. Ritter has always been a slinger of serious ideas and high-flown imagery.”
- The New York Times
“Mysterious, melancholy, melodic…and those are only the M’s.”
- Stephen King in Entertainment Weekly
Your London Writers' Salon Hosts:
Parul Bavishi and Matt Trinetti are the co-founders of the London Writers' Salon, creators of the webby-nominated Writers' Hour daily writing sessions, and hosts of the London Writers' Salon podcast.
Parul Bavishi has been an editor for over a decade. In addition to running LWS she helps thriller, YA and non-fiction writers level up their craft and get published. She writes and edits for the Story Grid. She has worked as an editor and literary scout at Random House, Quercus & Eccles Fisher. She analyses TV hit shows (Killing Eve, Ozark, Game of Thrones) on the Story Grid Showrunners Podcast.
Matt Trinetti is a writer, publisher, TEDx speaker, and facilitator. In addition to running LWS, Matt designs programs to help unfulfilled professionals pursue creative work, start businesses, and reinvent their careers. Matt's work has appeared in Quartz, Observer, Creative Mornings, and on his blog GiveLiveExplore.
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