The Power of Storytelling with Jessica Blank - The Word Weaver Podcast

Ch. 20 | The Power of Storytelling with Jessica Blank

October 31, 2018

Show Notes

Jessica Blank is a multi-hyphenate author, actor, director, playwright, speaker, and coach on a mission to impact our world through the transformative power of storytelling.

As an actor, Jessica has appeared regularly in film and television such as CBS' Made in Jersey, HBO’s High Maintenance, Blue Bloods, The Mentalist, Law and Order: CI, and many more.

With her husband Erik Jensen, she is author of THE EXONERATED, a play based on interviews they conducted with over 40 wrongly convicted death row inmates across the United States. THE EXONERATED became a New York Times number one play and an award-winning TV movie, starring Susan Sarandon, Danny Glover.

LIVING JUSTICE, Jessica and Erik's book on the making of THE EXONERATED, was published by Simon and Schuster. Jessica recently published her third novel, LEGACY (with Penguin Random House) and her first feature film based on her book, ALMOST HOME, premieres this fall. Her second feature film is currently in development with Likely Story, and her new documentary play (which has original music by Grammy winner Steve Earle) is set to be a major Off-Broadway production. If that weren’t enough to keep her busy, she is also launching several new initiatives as a writing coach and story activist in the upcoming months.

Jessica is a resident teacher at NYC’s Actors Green Room and a mentor for the Firelight Documentary Lab. She has guest taught at numerous colleges and universities including Brown, Stanford, Vanderbilt, NYU, The New School, Northwestern, and is a frequent speaker and panelist on the arts and social justice.

I can’t think of a better guest to have on the podcast to talk about the power of storytelling. Today we touch on everything from why talent is a myth, the differences between a generative and editorial brain, how to work across multiple narrative forms, the intersection between creative work and activism, and how words can change the world.