Makers & Mystics

What does it cost an artist to tell the truth? Singer-songwriter Zan Fiskum has built her entire creative life around finding out. In this episode, host Stephen Roach sits down with Zan to explore how her most personal songs, about a toxic creative relationship, a fractured friendship, and a complicated bond with her mother, became anthems for strangers carrying the same quiet weight.
This is a conversation about the craft behind vulnerability: how to write specifically enough to be honest, and broadly enough to let the listener find themselves inside your story. If you've ever wondered whether your most painful experiences are worth putting into a song, this episode answers that question with a resounding yes.

Key Takeaways
The particular is the universal. Writing from your most specific, personal experience doesn't isolate your audience; it invites them in. The goal is to leave enough space in the lyric for listeners to find their own story.
Vulnerability on stage is a form of service. Sharing something raw and real can give your audience permission to feel things they didn't think they were allowed to feel, and sometimes, to take action they've been avoiding for years.
Faith doesn't require religious language. Drawing on C.S. Lewis, Zan articulates a conviction shared by many artists of faith: we don't need more Christian people making Christian art. We need Christians making art, beautiful, honest, human art.
Your constraints can become your creative fuel. Whether it's a commission, a theme, or a question crowdsourced from strangers on the internet, working within limits can push you toward material you'd never find on your own.

Resources Mentioned
Zan Fiskum's album — Forbidden Art (available on all major streaming platforms) 
Makers and Mystics — "The Gift of the Elders" episode — A previous episode featuring Petrobas from New Zealand on how indigenous cultures honor their elders
Zan's social media:
Instagram: @zanfiskum
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JOIN US FOR BOOK CLUB! Every Tuesday at 8 pm EST in June 2026, we will be reading James's book online in our Patreon community! We'd love to have you with us. Visit patreon.com/makersandmystics to RSVP. 
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Beauty As Survival: Breath, Embodiment, and The First Instrument
A conversation with Whitney Lynn
In this episode, I sit down with embodiment coach, creative director, and longtime Breath and The Clay collaborator Whitney Lynn to explore the intersections of breath, beauty, embodiment, and the creative life.
Whitney’s work centers on “returning the body to the body,” helping people come home to themselves in a culture that so often pulls us toward dissociation. Together, we explore how breath is far more than a biological necessity; it is a sacred creative force, a pathway into nervous system regulation, healing, and flow. Through breathwork, we discuss how the body becomes not an obstacle to spiritual life, but our first instrument of artistry, intuition, and connection.
This conversation continues on themes from our series on The Pace of Beauty, expanding the idea that beauty is not a luxury or superficial pursuit, but a necessary force for survival. Whitney offers insight into how beauty regulates us, heals trauma, and awakens us to deeper intimacy with ourselves, others, and God.
Together, we also confront the inherited fear of the body present in many faith spaces, tracing how distorted ideas around embodiment have often disconnected spirituality from physical presence. Whitney invites us into a richer vision—one where the body is not something to escape, but a sacred vessel through which creativity, healing, and divine encounter unfold.
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JOIN US FOR BOOK CLUB! Every Tuesday at 8 pm EST in June 2026, we will be reading James's book online in our Patreon community! We'd love to have you with us. Visit patreon.com/makersandmystics to RSVP. 
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Make Your Home In This Luminous Dark
A conversation with James K. A. Smith

In this episode, I sit down with philosopher and author James K. A. Smith (Jamie) to explore the mystical tradition as a living pathway into deeper faith, creativity, and presence.
Jamie shares how his journey into mysticism began not through abstract theology, but through personal crisis, an experience of depression that exposed the limits of intellect and certainty. From there, voices like St. John of the Cross and Thomas Merton opened up a new way of understanding faith, not as mastery, but as surrender; not as knowing, but as unknowing.
Together, we explore what it means to “make your home in the luminous dark,” to embrace mystery as a space of transformation rather than failure. We also dive deeply into the surprising role of art, especially contemporary and “difficult” art, as a powerful and often overlooked gateway into contemplation. Rather than delivering clear messages, great art invites us into encounter, disorientation, and wonder, forming in us the very capacities needed for a mystical life.
This conversation is an invitation to let go of control, to trust the deeper currents of love beneath reality, and to discover how both mysticism and art can open us to the presence of God in ways that certainty never could.

JOIN US FOR BOOK CLUB! Every Tuesday at 8 pm EST in June 2026, we will be reading James's book online in our Patreon community! We'd love to have you with us. Visit patreon.com/makersandmystics to RSVP. 
Send us Fan Mail
Support the show
JOIN US FOR BOOK CLUB! Every Tuesday at 8 pm EST in June 2026, we will be reading James's book online in our Patreon community! We'd love to have you with us. Visit patreon.com/makersandmystics to RSVP. 
Sign Up for Our Newsletter! http://eepurl.com/g49Ks1
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What can ancient stories teach us about creativity, courage, and our own place in the modern world? 
In this episode, Stephen Roach welcomes poet and priest Malcolm Guite back to Makers & Mystics to explore his poetic retelling of King Arthur and the Holy Grail. Malcolm reflects on how these stories shaped him from childhood and why myth still carries moral and spiritual weight in a disenchanted age.
Together, they discuss the role of storytelling in recovering a sacramental vision of the world. This conversation is an invitation to re-enchantment—to slow down, commit to your craft, and take your place in the great unfolding story.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL HEAR ABOUT
Why Arthurian legend endures: its moral and spiritual resonance
Taking up the tale: how myth becomes personal meaning
Re-enchantment: seeing the world with wonder in an age of distraction
The value of slow, faithful creative practice
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JOIN US FOR BOOK CLUB! Every Tuesday at 8 pm EST in June 2026, we will be reading James's book online in our Patreon community! We'd love to have you with us. Visit patreon.com/makersandmystics to RSVP. 
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In this episode of Makers & Mystics, Stephen Roach sits down with cultural critic, writer, and iconographer Jonathan Pageau to explore the state of contemporary storytelling and the enduring power of myth.
Pageau, creator of The Symbolic World, explains how symbols operate beneath conscious awareness to shape imagination and culture. Together, they discuss why traditional narratives appear depleted, how propaganda differs from true myth, and why fairy tales continue to communicate truths modern culture struggles to articulate.
The conversation turns toward artists and storytellers, what it means to create work rooted in beauty, transcendence, and enduring symbolic patterns rather than novelty or cynicism. The conversation also connects with the theme of The Breath and the Clay 2026 —what it means to make space: space in our art, in our imagination, and in our lives for transcendent meaning to take root.

Jonathan Pageau will be our keynote presenter for this year's event in Winston-Salem, NC, March 20-22. http://www.thebreathandtheclay.com 
Send us Fan Mail
Support the show
JOIN US FOR BOOK CLUB! Every Tuesday at 8 pm EST in June 2026, we will be reading James's book online in our Patreon community! We'd love to have you with us. Visit patreon.com/makersandmystics to RSVP. 
Sign Up for Our Newsletter! http://eepurl.com/g49Ks1
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