Elizabeth Gilbert: Your elusive creative genius

January 16, 2011 by Gail
Filed under VidStyle

Elizabeth Gilbert muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses and shares the radical idea that, instead of the rare person ‘being’ a genius, all of us ‘have’ a genius. It’s a funny, personal and surprisingly moving talk.

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ABOUT Elizabeth Gilbert

“Elizabeth Gilbert faced down a pre-midlife crisis by doing what we all secretly dream of, running off for a year. Her travels through Italy, India and Indonesia resulted in the mega best selling and deeply beloved memoir Eat, Pray, Love, about her process of finding herself by leaving home.

She’s a longtime magazine writer, covering music and politics for Spin and GQ as well as a novelist and short-story writer. Her books include the story collection ‘Pilgrims’, the novel ‘Stern Men’ (about lobster fishermen in Maine) and a biography of the woodsman Eustace Conway, called ‘The Last American Man’.

Her work has been the basis for one movie so far (Coyote Ugly, based on her own memoir, in this magazine article, of working at the famously raunchy bar), and now it looks as if ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ is on the same track, with the part of Gilbert reportedly to be played by Julia Roberts. Not bad for a year off. Elizabeth also owns and runs the import shop Two Buttons in Frenchtown, New Jersey.”

The VIDEO