"Create any way"
A conversation with Ashlee Gadd, author of Create Anyway
Good morning and welcome back to Creative Parenting Club.
Today on CPC, we’re really excited to be joined by
, author of and founder of , an online literary magazine for mothers.Ashlee is based in California, where she lives with her partner and three kids. We originally connected when she replied to the note we put out in May looking for other parent writers on Substack:
We would soon learn that she quite literally wrote the book on finding time to create while raising a family.
Published in 2023, Ashlee’s book (also titled Create Anyway) is a guide to pursuing creativity within the context of family life. Though primarily focused on mothers, the book description immediately resonated with us:
You have creative dreams swirling in your heart, but pursuing them while changing diapers and managing the carpool schedule feels impossible. You have no time. No space. You can mother, or you can create. You certainly can't do both (right?!).
But what if you could pursue your God-given creative gifts alongside motherhood, for the enrichment of both experiences? What if you stopped viewing creativity as a selfish act, and started to see it as essential to your own flourishing as a mother?
This book is a much-needed permission slip to do just that--through the pictures you take, the stories you write, the meals you make, the music you play, the gardens you grow.-Create Anyway: The Joys of Pursuing Creativity in the Margins of Motherhood (Ashlee Gadd)
We’re grateful to Ashlee for stopping by CPC to answer our questions about family, creative inspiration, and what it’s like to write a book with three kids around.
We hope you enjoy this week’s interview.
[Creative Parenting Club]
Hi Ashlee! Thanks for joining us. Tell us a bit more about yourself. Where are you from? Where do you live now?
[Ashlee]
Thanks for having me! I'm a writer, photographer, and the founder of Coffee + Crumbs—an online literary magazine for mothers. I was born and raised in the Bay Area, but now I live in Sacramento with my husband and three kids.
[CPC]
Tell us a little bit about your family and what a typical week looks like for you.
[Ashlee]
My husband and I have been married for eighteen years (as of next month!), and our kids are 13, 10, and 6. I like to say we're in the sweet spot of parenting: everyone is out of diapers, but nobody has a smartphone. Right now my two boys are in school all day, and my daughter is in school from around 9am-12pm. Morning hours are my peak work hours, but I can typically squeeze in more work once she's home. Our summer break starts next week and all the kids will be home all of the time, so I'm currently working on—how shall I say this?—recalibrating my expectations. ;)
[CPC]
You wrote a book called Create Anyway about pursuing creativity within the context of motherhood. What motivated you to write the book and how old were your kids when you wrote it?
[Ashlee]
My kids were 7, 5, and 1 when I started writing Create Anyway, which is pretty wild to think about now. I know this is such a cliché answer, but Create Anyway is the book—or perhaps the permission slip—I wish I had been given as a new mom. Not because it holds all of the answers (not at all!), but because this book normalizes the tension women often carry between motherhood and pursuing art.
The title can be read as a form of defiance, and also as a practical starting place. Create anyway—in spite of fear, doubt, imposter syndrome, and whatever other forces of resistance you're facing. And then create any way—however and whenever you can.
[CPC]
We’re curious about the practical side of what it was like to get the book done while doing… all the other things. Practical wisdom is a big part of what we’re about here.
[Ashlee]
Well, on top of all of the regular things, I also wrote this book during the pandemic, which means school and childcare were not guaranteed. I wrote a lot at 5am while my family slept, I wrote in my car parked in the driveway, and on a few special occasions, I was able to hole up in an Airbnb for a weekend. But mostly I wrote this book in the margins, jotting ideas down on index cards while making dinner, giving my daughter a bath, etc. In the truest sense, I had to live out the message of this book thousands of times while writing it.
For so many of us, especially mothers with young children, we do not have 12 free hours a day to pursue our art. We might have half an hour here, 10 minutes there. The vast majority of us do not own a magical cabin in the woods we can escape to whenever we want. We are real mothers living within the confines of our real lives, the same lives filled with laundry and work deadlines, carpool schedules and grocery lists. We have boundaries and limits, of course, but right up against the edges, if you look closely enough, is a sliver of space.
On the surface it might not look like much, but if you add all of those margins up, you’d be amazed at what you can pursue, what you can dream up, and what you can create with that time.
[CPC]
Reflecting on the book and the time that’s gone by since you wrote it, what role would you say creativity plays in your life today?
[Ashlee]
Creativity is like breathing for me. It's a compulsion, a necessity, something I need to make time and space for, not only so I can flourish personally, but also so that I can love the people around me well. At baseline, I don't feel like myself when I'm not creating. Creativity is part of what makes me … me. It makes me a better wife, a better mother, a better friend, a better everything.
[CPC]
How do you incorporate that creativity into your family life? And how do you incorporate your kids into your creative life?
[Ashlee]
On a practical level, we work really hard to make creativity part of our family atmosphere and cadence. I like to joke that we're extracurricular minimalists, which is a fancy way of saying: our kids aren't signed up for tons of things. We have a lot of white space in our life and in our calendar—on purpose—which means my children have opportunities every single day to solve their own boredom. We keep an "art cart" next to the dining room table with paper, coloring books, markers, etc. We've got a big Lego table in the garage that my husband built a few years ago. My boys have a DIY, makeshift stop motion "studio" in their bedroom. We try to be really supportive of their creative interests and passions, and make sure they have the tools they need to pursue those things.
I also believe it’s important for my children to see me creating. If I want my kids to grow up to be good stewards of their creative talents and passions—and I do!—I have to model what that looks like. I want my children to see me putting words on a page, planting zinnias in the yard, photographing the sunset in Target parking lots, etc.
[CPC]
Has having kids changed your thinking about the "business" side of the arts?
[Ashlee]
If anything, having kids solidified my belief that creativity is worth pursuing regardless of whether or not it comes with a paycheck. I've chased so many creative dreams over the years. Some have succeeded; some have failed. Some have made money; some have lost money. But none of them were a waste because the creative process always changes me, in some way, for the better.
[CPC]
What’s the biggest challenge you face as a creative parent, and how are you navigating it?
[Ashlee]
For a long time, my children were my muses. And while I still find so much inspiration in the act of mothering, in recent years I've been wrestling with an increasing awareness of where my children's stories end and mine begins. So I'm working through that as an artist: how can I continue to write honestly about motherhood while focusing the lens tighter on myself and looser on them?
[CPC]
If you had to guarantee that your kids learned one thing, what would that be?
[Ashlee]
That they are loved beyond measure—regardless of their performance, accomplishments, or any other form of worldly success.
Thanks again to Ashlee for this week’s Q/A.
We’ve got a lot of other exciting interviews and writer collabs lined up for the summer months, so stay tuned for more interesting perspectives from creative parents here on Substack and out in the world.
We’ll be back next Friday with a personal reflection about the CPC team’s recent business trip to Germany’s legendary Fusion Festival.
In the meantime, stay cool in the heat — and keep creating anyway.
Thanks Ashlee for a cool interview :-)
Such eye opening conversation!