Artist’s Corner – Diana Raab, PhD

April 17, 2018

The Artist’s Corner is a new weekly feature of the Addiction/Recovery eBulletin. We send our participants forty questions and ask them to choose twenty they would like to answer. It includes a short profile and a link to their website. We hope you enjoy it.

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PROFILE

Diana Raab, PhD is a memoirist, poet, essayist, blogger, and speaker. She presents workshops in writing for healing and transformation. She has a PhD in Psychology with a concentration in Transpersonal Psychology with a research focus on the healing and transformative powers of memoir writing. Her educational background also includes health administration, nursing and creative writing.

She’s an award-winning author of 10 books, over 1000 articles and poems, and editor of two anthologies, Writers on the Edge: 22 Writers Speak About Addiction and Dependency, and Writers and Their Notebooks.

She’s an award-winning author of 10 books, over 1000 articles and poems, and editor of two anthologies, Writers on the Edge: 22 Writers Speak About Addiction and Dependency, and Writers and Their Notebooks.

Raab’s two memoirs are Regina’s Closet: Finding My Grandmother’s Secret Journal and Healing With Words: A Writer’s Cancer Journey. She has 4 poetry collections, including Lust.

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Q. Do you believe artists are made or born?
A. Born but they must be nurtured.

Q. What is your preferred form of artistic expression?
A. Creative written expression

Q. Do prefer living by the ocean, lake, river, mountaintop, or penthouse?
A. Depends on my mood. Most often—mountaintop.

Q. What is your favorite hotel or resort?
A. The Amankila in Bali

Q. Where did you go to ‘get away?
A. Maui

Q. What is your biggest or littlest pet peeve?
A. Inconsiderate and ungrateful behavior

Q. Who was your biggest influence throughout your life?
A. My father who was a Holocaust survivor and had such a positive outlook.

Q. If you were giving a dinner party for your 3 favorite authors, Living or dead, who would they be? (you can choose 4 if you think one might be too drunk or stoned to attend.)
A. Anais Nin, Henry Miller, Thomas Steinbeck

Q. What is your favorite: Non-fiction book genre?
A. Memoir and biography

Q. What is your favorite: Museum?
A. Museum of Modern Art, NY because my grandfather always took me there as a child.

Q. What is your favorite: Band/composer/musical artist?
A. Depends on my mood, but always Sting and Tom Waits.

Q. What is your favorite: Broadway musical/play?
A. The Sound of Music

Q. What is your favorite: Psychology or school of thought as related to psychology?
A. Humanistic

Q. What’s your favorite NPR radio show?
A. All Things Considered

Q. What books are you reading now?
A. Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life

Q. What is the best piece of advice you’ve been given?
A. Live and let live

Q. What is the best piece of advice you’ve given to others?
A. Have no fear

Q. What are five things you always carry with you?
A. My keys, phone, wallet, journal, pen

Q. What’s the greatest risk you’ve ever taken?
A. Getting married

Q. What is the proudest moment in your life?
A. Having my first memoir, Regina’s Closet published