We’re so pleased Charles Tonderai Mudede will be joining us as our June speaker on REVOLUTION. You can still hop on our waitlist for tickets right here.

Charles is a Zimbabwean-born cultural critic, filmmaker, and film editor for The Stranger. Mudede collaborated with the director Robinson Devor on two films, Police Beat and Zoo, both of which premiered at Sundance–Zoo was screened at Cannes. Mudede has contributed to the New York Times, LA Weekly, Village Voice, Black Souls Journal, C Theory, Cinema Scope, and is on the editorial board for the Arcade Journal and Black Scholar. Mudede has lived in Seattle since 1989. 

Charles took a few moments to tell us a little more about himself:

How do you define creativity and apply it in your career?
It is finding a space to dream, and usually for me that is at the end of a day and during a walk. Without this dreaming, I can make nothing.

Where do you find your best creative inspiration?
City parks and walking around Beacon Hill, my favorite neighborhood.

What’s the one creative advice or tip you wish you’d known as a young person?
Actually, as a young person, I knew exactly what to do and did it. It works like this: Find someone whose way of thinking you like and then emulate that way of thinking. Eventually, you will find disagreements with that way of thinking and begin to develop your own. Creativity is imitation and betrayal.

Who would you like to hear speak at CreativeMornings?
Jonathan Raban, because he has the best mind in Seattle.

What are you reading these days?
A lot of economics, particularly the books by Joan Robinson, a mid-century British economist and post-Keynesian. Economics, I think, might be the most important subject of our times.

How does your life and career compare to what you envisioned for your future when you were a sixth grader?
I wanted to be an astronaut. I’m now a writer and filmmaker and stuck on Earth.