Rabbi Adina Allen is a spiritual leader, writer, and educator who grew up in an art studio where she learned firsthand the power of creativity for connecting to self and to the Sacred. She is co-founder and creative director of Jewish Studio Project (JSP), an organization that is seeding a future in which every person is connected to their creativity as a force for healing, liberation, and social transformation. Based on the work of her mother, renowned art therapist Pat B. Allen, Adina developed the Jewish Studio Process, a methodology for unlocking creativity, which she has brought to thousands of activists, educators, artists, and clergy across the country.

You are an author, but is it your day job? If not, what does fill your days? I am the co-founder and Creative Director of an organization called Jewish Studio Project. Our mission is to help people cultivate creativity as a force for spiritual connection and social transformation. At the core of our work is a methodology that weaves together intellect + spirit + imagination. I work with an amazing team and teach, facilitate, and mentor folks across the country.

Did you always want to be an author? I have always loved writing and aspired to be an author. My mom published a book (Art is a Way of Knowing) when I was a child and that was — and continues to be — impactful for so many people, and I wanted to be like her.

What is your most recent book and what inspired you to write it? The Place of All Possibility: Cultivating Creativity Through Ancient Jewish Wisdom. I wanted to uplift the rich spiritual wisdom of Jewish tradition and make it accessible to those of all faiths and backgrounds. At a time of narrowing imagination, polarization, and fear, I wanted to help people connect to creativity, the radical power of their imagination, a sense of interconnectivity, and a stance of hopefulness about the future.

How do you hope your book uplifts those who read it? I hope this book will remind readers of the creativity that exists within them, and that their creativity is a powerful resource in the work of personal transformation and social change. So many of us in our culture have imbibed harmful messaging that we’re not creative, or that creativity is reserved for the elite few when in fact, each and every one of us are created creative. I hope it reminds readers of the way that we are all connected and that the change, healing, or joy we bring to those in our family and communities has a ripple effect out in the wider world.

How did writing a book help your career take off? This book is helping make the ideas, teachings, and practices of our work accessible to many more people in a powerful way.

What advice would you give to someone wanting to succeed in your professional industry? Stay connected to spirit, or whatever word you have for that source of inspiration, pleasure, and generativity. When it leaves, the project will stall; when it’s there, you will thrive, even if it sometimes looks different than you had first imagined.

How do you handle setbacks and criticism? I take them into my creative practice and see where the kernels of learning are and what isn’t necessarily mine to hold. I try to get to a place of gratitude for feedback that can help me grow and help my writing develop.

Being an author today is like running a business. How do you manage all your publicity, social media, and keep your engagement up with readers? I have an amazing team at Jewish Studio Project and I feel blessed to collaborate on this work. I am also learning how to set limits and boundaries around my time.

How do you hold yourself accountable and achieve the goals that you set forth? I set goals and then I practice releasing to the universe to see what comes, it’s a practice of oscillation between reaching toward what I want and opening to what is here for me.

How do you structure your day and make time for writing? I write best between 2-5am, when the world is quiet and creative energy abounds.

What do you find most fulfilling in the career that you’ve chosen? I feel a deep sense of purpose in my work and am grateful to be able to share and teach a practice that can support people in leading fuller, more joyful, more aligned lives. I am constantly surprised and delighted by what I learn from the texts I study and from the people I learn and create with.

What book uplifts you? Recent books that have moved me are When Animals Dream by David Pena-Guzman, The Power of Gentleness by Anne Dufourmantelle, Metamorphosis by Emanuele Coccia, Ecology of Desire by Andreas Weber, and anything by Sophie Strand or Bayo Akomolafe.

Connect with Rabbi Adina Allen via the Jewish Studio Project website.