The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, And Neuroscience

#PodcastersForJustice Award-winning author and filmmaker, Priyanka Kumar, spoke to me about the language of cinema, her Zen leanings, returning to the solace of nature, and her latest, "Conversations with Birds." Priyanka Kumar is a graduate of the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts and an alumna of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She is also the award-winning writer, director, and producer of the feature documentary The Song of the Little Road, starring Martin Scorsese and Ravi Shankar. Her latest is Conversations with Birds, a Publishers Weekly “Top Ten Nonfiction Book for Fall 2022,” a Bookshop.org “Read Outside the Big Five” selection, and Apple, November Best Books of the Month, and been described in a Kirkus, starred review as, “An eloquent depiction of how birding engenders a deep love of our ecosystems and a more profound understanding of ourselves." Priyanka's debut novel, Take Wing and Fly Here, was published in 2013 to critical acclaim, and her essays and criticism hav