Meet the Creators of the Imaginative Storm Writing Method
The birth of the Imaginative Storm
The Imaginative Storm writing method was developed by James Navé and Allegra Huston, who came together from different ends of the literary spectrum. Navé, a championship-winning slam poet, started teaching workshops in collaboration with Julia Cameron, bestselling author of The Artist’s Way. Allegra came from the academic side: having gained a First in English from Oxford University, she became Editorial Director of Weidenfeld & Nicolson, one of the UK’s most respected literary publishing houses.
We started teaching writing workshops together in 2003. Over the decades, we combined and refined our two approaches: bringing imaginative freedom to the rational mindset, and structure to free-ranging creativity. This collaboration is what makes our work unique.
Allegra Huston
“I write because I am endlessly fascinated by what people do, why we do it, and how we make sense of the world.”
I’m the author of Write What You Don’t Know (with James Navé), Love Child: A Memoir of Family Lost and Found, the novel A Stolen Summer, and, for writers, How to Edit and Be Edited and How to Read for an Audience (with James Navé).
I contributed to the anthology One Last Lunch: A Final Meal with Those Who Meant So Much to Us, writing an imaginary lunch with my mother who died when I was four. You can listen to me read it here.
I’ve written for many newspapers and magazines in the US and the UK, including Vogue, Condé Nast Traveler, People, Newsweek, The Times (London), The Oldie, and The Independent on Sunday.
I’ve also written many screenplays, among them the award-winning short film Good Luck, Mr. Gorski.
I’ve taught creative writing workshops for the University of Oklahoma, the National University of Ireland, Galway, the Taos Writers Conference, and the UK’s prestigious Arvon Foundation.
Favorite movies:
Harold and Maude, The Year of Living Dangerously, Night of the Hunter, The Matrix, Man on Wire - and, of course, Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Favorite books that I edited:
Through a Window by Jane Goodall. I spent so much time with Jane going through photos that I ended up being able to recognize individual chimps! My favorite recent job is The Intermediaries by Brandi Schillace.
Favorite books that I didn’t edit:
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville; The Emerald Mile by Kevin Fedarko; Never Let Me Go by Kazoo Ishiguro; Gone by Min Kym.
Most amazing theatre experience:
King Lear at the Old Vic, with Eric Porter as Lear. In Act 4 a messenger comes on and says something like, “My lords, the King of France is winning!” and I actually thought, “Oh my god, it’s going to be okay this time!”
Fun movie experience:
Recognizing Beryl Markham's book West with the Night on Meg Ryan's bedside table in Sleepless In Seattle.
James Navé
“My American Express card says ‘‘poet,” but whether it’s mine or anyone else’s, I’m passionately in love with poetry.”
I’m the author of Write What You Don’t Know (with Allegra Huston), 100 Days Poems After Cancer, and How to Read for an Audience (with Allegra Huston).
Before joining forces with Allegra, I worked with Julia Cameron, bestselling author of The Artist’s Way, developing and teaching Artist’s Way Creativity Camps across the US.
I grew up in the storytelling tradition of western North Carolina, and found my voice in the slam poetry scene. As founder of Poetry Alive!, which brought performance poetry into schools and reached over 3 million children across the U.S., I memorized over 600 poems. (Ask me how many I’ve forgotten!)
I hold an MFA from Vermont College, and I’ve taught workshops at the University of Oklahoma, the National University of Ireland, Galway, and Duke University. I’ve also performed shows and taught writing and creativity worldwide, as far afield as Nouakchott, Mauritania; Galway, Ireland; Bangkok, Paris, and Lima.
For the last nine years I’ve hostedI a weekly podcast Twice 5 Miles Radio: Fertile Ground for Conversations Worth Having. It airs on WPVMFM-Asheville, KCEI Taos, and Soundcloud.
Most influential lines of poetry:
"I am a part of all that I have met; / Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough / Gleams that untravelled world whose margin fades / For ever and forever when I move." Tennyson, “Ulysses”
Poetry pays:
A frazzled ticket agent once upgraded me to first-class from San Francisco to London because I recited a love poem to her: “Strawberries” by Edwin Morgan.
Greatest accomplishment:
Having lifelong friends who will always pick up the phone when I call.
Join us online for the Writing Prompt of the Week
We’d love to show you how much fun it is to write in the Imaginative Storm!
Saturdays at 12 – 1 pm ET; Thursdays 6 – 7 pm ET. It’s free and you don’t need to pre-register. Just get a notebook and pen, and click the link in the footer, below.
If you’d like to read more about how the Writing Prompt of the Week works, and why it works, click here.