The Creative Life, Written: Artists on Process and Collective Memory
in partnership with Making Her Mark Foundation
Ruut DeMeo, Lisa Brown, Sarah Magida with moderator Amy Bernstein
This session also serves as an open invitation for artists—especially women and femme creators—to join an ongoing writing journey focused on publishing and sharing creative lives in written form.
Constellation Energy Classroom, 3rd Floor
Maryland Center for History and Culture
610 Park Avenue
Baltimore, MD 21201

______________

“If artists don’t write their stories, entire ways of being creative disappear.”What happens when artists write about their process—not just their finished work, but the doubt, persistence, experimentation, and growth that shape their creative lives? This panel and interactive session explores the role of writing in expanding who gets to exist in the literary and cultural record. Featuring interdisciplinary artists who engage in both creative practice and writing, the conversation will examine how documenting the creative process becomes an act of visibility, resistance, and connection. Together, we’ll consider: What artists learn about themselves through writing? Why process is as valuable as product? How writing helps navigate vulnerability and public creative life? Whether artists have a responsibility to document their journeys? Participants will be invited to engage directly through guided writing prompts, reflecting on their own creative experiences and imagining how their stories might contribute to a larger collective narrative. This session is especially for artists with interdisciplinary practices, those drawn to memoir and writing about creativity, and anyone interested in sustaining a creative life through reflection and storytelling. Ruut DeMeo is a Baltimore-based Finnish writer and songwriter and the founder of Making Her Mark Foundation, which supports Women Creators with grants, workshops, and mentorship. Lisa Brown is a multidisciplinary artist and storyteller whose work spans analog photography, sculpture, and community-based practice rooted in African and Mexican heritage. Through projects that amplify overlooked voices—from women in Baltimore’s prisons to children in northern Ghana—she has developed a deeply reflective, process-driven approach to artmaking. With an MFA in Community Arts from MICA, Lisa speaks on the creative process as a practice of healing, cultural preservation, and sustained engagement. Sarah Magida is a Baltimore-based fiber artist, reiki practitioner, and artist coach working across embroidery, natural dye, tufting, and painting. Her process-driven practice translates inner experience into vivid, patterned landscapes, often using dyes grown in her urban garden. With a BFA from MICA and an MA from the University of Baltimore, she speaks on creativity as an intuitive, embodied practice rooted in transformation and self-discovery. Amy Bernstein is a Baltimore-based writer, speaker, and creative mentor whose work spans journalism, essays, and fiction. Through her writing and teaching, she explores creativity as a practice of risk-taking, self-discovery, and persistence. Known for her candid approach to the challenges of making art, she helps writers move through doubt and embrace the creative process at any stage of life. Making Her Mark Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that supports Women Creators with grants, workshops, and mentorship.

Visit the News Section for detailed information.

______________

CityLit Project in partnership with Maryland Center for History and Culture present Bearing Witness: Literature as a Revolutionary Act. This celebration of the arts showcases a bevy of leading poets and writers on April 11, 2026. We’re talking fiction, nonfiction, poetry galore, and ways to up the ante on your craft.

Download the CityLit Festival: Bearing Witness flyer with the schedule.

Keep up with all things happening at CityLit by subscribing to our newsletter.

STAY INFORMED