When @jonnysun has doubts, he thinks of all the art that has fundamentally changed his life. If he can allow himself to imagine that happening to one person that engages with what he’s working on, then he says that makes it worth it. Tomorrow at 4 pm EST we’re live for another episode at the Lab for more wisdom like this with the one and only @adriennelwarren. Will we see you in the lab?

Interdisciplinary artists no longer have to choose just one path to hone their creative voice, and @jonnysun embodies this change in creative fields. Jonny is a writer for @bojackhorseman, a NYT best selling author, and illustrator, and is currently a Ph.D candidate at MIT. He says that he wants be to apart of the creative community in different mediums because he doesn’t just consume one medium, and he hopes his work reflects that.

The next guest at the Bars Lab is @adriennelwarren. From @tinabroadway to Shuffle Along and @womenofthemovementabc, Adrienne’s career has always been one to watch and we’re so excited for her to join us this Saturday. Live on Instagram at 4pm EST this Saturday come through to talk music, performance and her creative process.

When his @nytimes best selling book Goodbye, Again came out, @jonnysun had trouble accepting the overwhelmingly positive reviews. He felt that if he was still critical of his work already published, then he could still have control over it and, in a way, still be actively working on it. A major theme in the book is capitalism’s influence on our self worth and productivity, and yet after the book’s release he still felt the same pressure of productivity the book deconstructs. Most artists can relate to equating self worth to productivity, but @jonnysun says celebrating the positives can be just as productive.

Our next writing prompt for the Bars community comes from the brilliant interdisciplinary writer @jonnysun. Inspired by his piece “Your last 15 minutes before the end of the world, ranked from worst to best” @jonnysun asks writers to create a piece that messes with traditional linear storytelling. Share and tag us in what you come up with because we can’t wait to see what our community creates.

How do you tell a story without focusing on linear chronology? In this excerpt from Goodbye Again, @jonnysun takes the clickbait listicle style and manipulates it in a way that he wanted to be “devastating and personal and lyrical.” He tells this story in nonlinear chronology, and he may have a writing prompt coming tomorrow for all you writers of the Bars community to share how you write a nonlinear story.

The transfer of time and attention in relationships informs the way poet Sarah Kay interacts with audiences and makes her a generous and thoughtful artist. We learned so many valuable lessons like this one from her time at the Bars Lab and tomorrow @jonnysun joins us at 4pm EST for more wisdom about the creative process. Will we see you there?

Trust, reliability, and how truth makes you feel are things that come to mind when Sarah Kay reflects on being a narrator in her poetry. When she pivoted to non-fiction, the responsibility and care that comes with a more research based journalistic writing style challenged the confidence she has in her expertise. At Bars, many interdisciplinary artists pivot in this way from genre to genre facing new challenges in this discovery. What are some differences you’ve noticed when working in a new medium, or as Sarah would put it, a new galaxy?

The next guest demystifying the creative process at the Bars Lab is the brilliant writer @jonnysun. We are LIVE this Saturday at 4pm EST/1 pm PST on Instagram with our hosts @rafaelcasal @daveeddiggs and @cookufur.

Sarah’s teaching and performing has brought her around the world, and even where language creates barriers performance gifts universal access. This is a similar theme we’ve seen at the Lab with guests like @mistyonpointe discussing the universal nature of dance, but Sarah explains how even a language based art form like slam poetry can still be universal in performance.

In the poem Minister of Loneliness, Sarah Kay imagines a solution to loneliness in a pandemic in the form of a poem. If you could invent a job to solve any of the world’s problems, what would it be? Share your writing response on Instagram and tag @barsworkshop as we repost some of your work. Be sure to check out Sarah’s Minister of Loneliness poem as an example posted to our Instagram. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

In response to Japan’s creation of a Minister of Loneliness in the pandemic, poet Sarah Kay wrote this poem describing how her imagined Minister of Loneliness would help people. Tomorrow, Bars Workshop will release it’s first prompt for friends of the program to submit responses to based on this poem. Keep an eye out for that tomorrow because we can’t wait to see your creativity.