Episode 32 - Writing as Alchemy w/ Tony Dushane

32I met Tony Dushane a couple years ago when he enrolled in my class on creative alchemy. It was inspired by the idea that artists are alchemists: explorers of the invisible realms and spiritual healers. And like alchemy, the power of art transforms and transmutes. As I got to know Tony, I learned how his life-story is a beautiful demonstration of art as alchemy. 

Tony was raised as a Jehovah's Witness, an apocalyptic Christian sect that most people describe as a cult. For the first 20+ years of his life, Tony was a true believer: pained by the urgency of the last days, knocking on doors, and living in an ideological echo chamber. 

But by the time I met Tony, he was an avid student of magic, astrology and alchemy. And he’d experienced a rare level of success as a writer, publishing a novel based on his life called Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk. 

His book captured the attention of the actor/director Eric Stoltz, who turned it into a movie. 

Through the art of writing, Tony’s life story was submitted to the alchemical process: heartbreak and tragedy uplifted into comedic and romantic nostalgia. And the film was the final transmutation.

I wanted to interview Tony because I was so curious about what it was like growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness, why he left that world behind and how he became an artist.

In our interview, we discuss…

* How his friend’s suicide triggered his ideological awakening

* How the public library was a sanctuary that “literally saved his life” 

* Creative writing as a “conversation with the ancients”

* Needing therapy after leaving the church

* What it was like making a movie with Eric Stoltz 

* His astrology chart, how the planets reveal his artistic gifts

* His current relationship with the Bible and the teachings of Christ

* AI and corporate greed as the enemy of art

* Why writers should never be afraid to write “shitty first drafts”

* And why he teaches a free writing class at the Los Feliz Public library