As a writer I am influenced by the Muses, Plato, Socrates, the ancient mystery schools, the Oracle of Delphi, Homer, Ovid and Aeschylus to name but a few. Especially their poetic sensibilities and dedication to ceremony and the ritual of theatre.

My past writing credits include being a contributor for Stylus, Canvas8, David Report and producing the initial content for the launch of the Tokyo section of CNNGo (now folded into the main CNN Travel brand). 

From 2009-2011 I had my own column on Asia for the World Entrepreneur Society. My interviews and articles have also been published on JC Report, Car Design News, WGSN, Brandchannel and LS:N Global (amongst others). I was also a Collaborator to the book How to Research Trends and a Contributor to the book More Than a Name: An Introduction to Branding. 

The new novel I’m working on is a reimagining of the Persephone and Hades myth. It’s about dark nights, transitions and crossroads. I am very close to finishing the first draft!

Past experience has taught me that tensions are often ratcheted up to force leaps of consciousness. The shadow is part of this creative process, calling up ghosts of old cycles past. My current writing draws me to mythic imaginations, poetic images, to night-time terrors and day-time joys. I quite like the poet John Keats and his turn of phrase ‘negative capability’ to describe this state.

I want to discover my voice within the emergence of a larger current and so the ground needs to fall away so something different can grow. An emptying out, so an expansion can occur in a new and novel way – the sight and words that can only come after a storm has swept the earth clean. 

I was honoured to receive an invitation to represent Australia at the first World Writers of Lithuania Forum for the World Lithuanian Year and the Day of Press Recovery, Language and Books in Vilnius in 2019. The aim of the project was to contribute to the preservation of the national identity of Lithuanian writers, the maintenance of a living relationship with the homeland and the creation of Lithuanian heritage through the sharing of knowledge, experience and social contacts of diaspora culture professionals. 

The Ministry of Education, Science and Sport also asked the diaspora writers to meet with pupils in several Lithuanian secondary schools. One thing I am very passionate about is education! I really feel developing archetypal narratives increases our imaginative capacities and it’s a joy to work with young adults to develop their writing capabilities. And as C. G. Jung wrote, “Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of the imagination is incalculable.”

You can read an interview on my visit here.

© 2020 Kristina Dryza