Elizabeth Bruce ’74 is a alum working at the intersection of creativity and innovation. Her podcast, “Creativists in Dialogue”, looks at how this intersection plays out with individuals across the occupation spectrum. The Peak recently spoke with Bruce about her current role, how it has evolved in her life, and how it grew from her foundations at CC.
What jobs have you had since graduating from CC?
Since graduating from CC in 1974, I’ve had a lot of jobs! Several were administrative positions, including at the Boulder-based Center for Action Research, working for the Founder & Executive Director, the late sociologist Dr. Robert M. Hunter, Professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
In the 1970-80s, I also worked for over five years as the Staff Writer & Administrative Director of the Denver-based Colorado Coalition for Full Employment, a coalition of trade union, civil rights, environmental, tourism, agriculture, & faith organizations working for full employment through conservation and renewables (pretty much “the Green Agenda” in the 1970s). Other admin jobs were for the Denver International Theatre Festival and in pre-production for an NYC-based dramatic labor history film series for PBS.
In 1983 in Washington, DC, I co-founded Sanctuary Theatre, Inc. and served/serve as Managing Director and Artistic Company Member. The theatre transitioned to primarily education work in the early 1990s and later returned to productions at DC’s Capital Fringe Festivals.
I’ve been a freelance writer for non-profits and small publications in DC. For decades, both a consultant and staffer, I worked as a teaching artist, arts producer, and staff writer at the bilingual, multicultural community-based educational organization CentroNía, including creating and leading the award-winning, innovative initiative, the Theatrical Journey Project: Introducing Science to Early Learning through Guided Pretend Play.
As a creative writer, I’ve been incredibly fortunate to get some fellowships and to be published by Washington Writers’ Publishing House (becoming a longtime member of this cooperative press) and the Athens, Greece-based Vine Leaves, as well as in journals and anthologies in the USA and 13 other countries. I’ve had a few scripts produced as full or workshop performances in DC or elsewhere, and currently have a couple fictional works-in-progress.
What do you do in your current role?
My “job” at this point really is one hundred percent as a writer. I’ve had a long, 50+-year career as a non-profit writer, theatre producer and practitioner, teaching artist, arts producer, and literary writer. I am now completely dedicating myself to different aspects of the writing life. This includes the generative and promotional dimensions of my own fiction writing—My new story collection, Universally Adored and Other One Dollar Stories just launched from Vine Leaves Press, so I’m knee deep in readings and promotions. I also recently produced an author-read audiobook of my debut novel, And Silent Left the Place, and am closing in on a first draft of a novel-in-progress that takes a number of characters from my one-dollar story collection and plunks them down in the same place.
And in a more journalistic capacity, my current writing life includes being the Producer and Co-Host our podcast—Creativists in Dialogue: A Podcast Embracing the Creative Life, and its sub-series on theatre and the most recent Innovators, Artists & Solutions, for which we recently interviewed Dr. Jessica Hunter and Kris Stanec of CC’s Creativity & Innovation initiative!
My role as producer and co-host of the podcast encompasses networking, identifying, and coordinating the logistics with interviewees, researching them and their work, crafting individually tailored questions, and interviewing them with my co-host, Robert Michael Oliver. With Michael, I also do the grant writing and reporting for our funders, the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities and HumanitiesDC, and our outreach to the podcast’s paid subscribers.
How does your job engage with innovation?
With my co-host, Michael Oliver, and our small production team, we produce “Creativists in Dialogue” and its sub-series, “Innovators, Artists & Solutions” and “Theatre in Community.” In a world that today is increasingly paralyzed by partisan divisions and other entrenchments, we believe that creativity offers a healing way forward. Indeed, we strive to honor and celebrate the creativity embedded in the endeavors of people from all walks of life, not just those who are “artists.”
For our “Innovators, Artists & Solutions” series we are currently seeking out and interviewing individuals whose work and organizations are implementing innovative, creative ways of addressing compelling social issues.
What do you like best about your job?
I love having the opportunity to dialogue deeply with a wide variety of individuals whose work and lives are at once fascinating, dynamic, and hopeful. I especially enjoy taking these conversations to another level with laughter, good will, and the shared embrace of the creativity and optimism that flow from innovation.
How do you feel your time at CC prepared you for your current occupation?
My time at CC has had a profound effect on both my professional and personal lives in manifold ways. At the risk of sounding like an old school cheerleader for a “liberal arts education,” I know that being immersed as a young adult in the study of knowledge bases that are related to each other—in my case, English Literature, as well as Art History, History, Philosophy, Psychology, and some social and hard sciences—truly provided the momentum for my own life-long learning.
Obviously, I still have a vast way to go in grasping the interconnectedness of Western intellectual history. I claim no expertise in the histories of other regions of the world. But, having a foundational liberal arts education and continuing to read and learn about art and culture, the humanities, and world affairs has provided a baseline of a coherent narrative on which to contextualize all this ongoing content—which may be very un-postmodern of me!
At a practical level, however, during my time at CC and in all of my subsequent work, the process of writing and wordsmithing has been essential to the organization of my life. The writing process really demands coherent thought both subjectively and objectively. Having some capacity to perceive the human condition and social organization at the macro and the micro levels has helped me tremendously to feel anchored in my own human condition.
On a more individual basis, some of my CC Professors – Dan Tynan & Ruth Barton in particular – really encouraged me to pursue my creative inclinations. I remember reading the role of Lear’s Fool in an English class and being really excited by the act of performing — and then, a few years later, I actually took up acting as an artistic discipline, and that shaped my life for the next 50 years! Dan Tynan also really encouraged me to keep writing creatively in response to some assignments I did, though it took me many years to focus on writing fiction. But I never forgot that early encouragement.
I’ve also had the extraordinarily good fortune of being married to a brilliant man, my husband and creative partner, Michael Oliver, PhD, for all these many decades and being in deep and civil discourse about all manner of humanistic concepts and constructs, as well as a lifetime of dialogue with amazing friends and colleagues.
What is your biggest professional goal for the future?
Professionally, I hope to continue and grow our “Creativists in Dialogue” podcast and its newest series, “Innovators, Artists & Solutions”, and connect with different sectors of our complex society. As a literary writer, I hope to both garner broader readership for my published works and to finish and publish my works-in-progress.
CC on “Innovators, Artists & Solutions”
On a recent episode of her “Innovators, Artists & Solutions” podcast, Bruce interviewed Dr. Jessica Hunter and Kris Stanec of the Colorado College Creativity & Innovation initiative. Listen to the conversation below.
Across Generations – Season 5 of Creativists in Dialogue – A Conversation with Mrs. Barbara Owens, Part 2 – Creativists in Dialogue
- Across Generations – Season 5 of Creativists in Dialogue – A Conversation with Mrs. Barbara Owens, Part 2
- Across Generations – Season 5 of Creativists in Dialogue – A Conversation with Mrs. Barbara Owens, Part 1.
- Across Generations – Season 5 of Creativists in Dialogue – Dr. Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, Part 2
- Across Generations – Season 5 of Creativists in Dialogue – Dr. Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, Part 1
- Across Generations – Season 5 of Creativists in Dialogue – Carlos Lemos, Part 3