Hi! I’m Kim Selby, and I’m the creator and host of
The Enchant Me Podcast.

For more years that I can count I’ve been attracted to art in all forms. Reading, writing, drawing, painting, music, you name it. I find anyone who can create something from nothing lucky and fascinating and brave.

I have vivid memories of being a kid and sitting in a circle for story time as my second grade teacher, Mrs. Gredel, read the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books and wondering if maybe someday I might be grown up enough to write a book. In that same second grade class, I won a coloring contest and I will never forget that day. I won a game called “Sail, Ho” and I loved it so much that I never wanted to open it and risk wearing it out. It felt outerworldly to be acknowledged for doing something that meant so much to me. I also remember getting a giant roll of yellow paper from someone – it may have been my grandfather – and laying on the living room floor tearing sheets off and drawing and coloring. I used that same giant roll of yellow paper (for some reason it seemed to go on forever, an endless supply of yellow potential waiting to be unleashed) to design new Van Halen and MTV logos (yes, I’m an 80s kid through and through).

And then something starts to happen as we start to get older. We forget the magic that is sparked by creating. Grades become more important, teenage angst starts to take over, getting into a favored college becomes a priority, and before you know it, your inner artist starts to get buried under layers of other stuff to worry about. At least that was my experience.

Fast forward a few years, and in your first ‘real job’ you find yourself working for a book publisher in New York City. Working with teams of professionals working with authors and editors and designers. You’re surrounded by books and art and smart people who create, and you’re working in a city that is all of those things you love but forgot you love until they’re put in front of you again. And then you start to hear a faint, forgotten voice that seems to follow you wherever you go. You start to remember how it felt to have a pencil or a crayon or a paintbrush in your hand. And the voice starts to get louder and louder until you can’t ignore it anymore. It becomes so strong that you leave that first job to go back to school to pursue your dream of being a ‘real’ artist. And then once you get there, you realize that even though you are still only in your twenties, your second grade artist self is really hard to find because in the relatively short span of time from the day she triumphantly and confidently ran home with Sail, Ho, she has grown a few layers of hesitation and fear.

I never did finish that second BFA. After three semesters I left New Jersey to move to Atlanta, which was where I came across The Artist’s Way and the concept of the artist date. I’ve gone back to the book on and off in the twenty or so years since then. Each time I do, I try to envision that I’m chipping off bits of that fear and resistance that I’ve collected over the years. Of all of the tools in the book, taking an hour or so a week to  help find and cultivate inspiration and creativity was the one that was easiest to remember to do because it didn’t feel like work. And after doing them a few times, it becomes easier to recognize and remember those moments that inspire. The moments that enchant.

When I’m not going on artist dates or writing and producing podcasts, I’m running Storm Your Brain, LLC, a communications solutions company in New Jersey with my tightly wound, yet extremely lovable doxie rescue, Scarlet Bee at my side.

© 2019 Kim Selby, The Enchant Me Podcast, Enchant Me Productions & Storm Your Brain, LLC.
All rights reserved.
All photography © Kim Selby unless otherwise credited.