We were lucky to catch up with Amber Casillas recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Amber thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

For the past 10 years, I was the director of a dance studio and it forced me to learn a ton of new skills. I learned how to build entire costumes from scratch, reimagine classical ballets, create entire productions from start to finish, plan and organize our recitals and competitions, and so much more. It forced me to think on my feet. When COVID hit, we couldn’t recover and circumstances forced us to shut down. During that time, I realized that there were so many things that I could now do that could help sustain me. I began writing more full-time, I started creating art from found and recycled materials, and I continued sewing. I can now say that I am a jack-of-all-trades.

Amber, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I have always been a creative person who loved to figure out how to turn the ordinary into something beautiful. I have also always been very independent. If something needs to get done, I will figure out how to get it done. If it requires learning a new skill then that just makes it all that much more fun for me.

The Green Shoe Sanctuary was born from this desire to learn and grow in my own writing and creative skills, but to also create a space for other artists and authors to showcase their works. It is a small free indie e-magazine for short stories, poetry and essays, but it is steadily growing in its readership and I am excited to see where the future takes us.

I think what sets The Green Shoe Sanctuary apart is that it is accessible to authors and creatives that wouldn’t otherwise have a home for their works. I know how competitive the larger magazines, journals, and anthologies can be and I wanted to provide a space for those that are just starting out in their artistic journeys. I wanted to give them a foot in the door.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I love to write. I have three self-published books available on Amazon and quite a few more works-in-progress, but I learned pretty quickly that I love being behind the scenes just as much. I found a community of writers that have been an amazing sounding board, source of inspiration, and critical eye during my writing journey. We are all budding authors that are hoping to make it big some day, but in the mean time, we have learned to celebrate the little achievements just as much as the larger ones.

One of my favorite things to do is judge writing contests. I love to celebrate talented authors that are unknown to the world. I love to read new works that aren’t yet published. I love to organize the and host contests of my own. It is that thankless job of hosting that I have found to be the most rewarding for me as a creative.

The Green Shoe Sanctuary is very much the same. It is a place that I have created and maintain for other authors to showcase their own works. There is very little of my own work on the site. It is about celebrating others. And I absolutely love that. I love reading the new submissions that come in daily. I love when there’s that one piece of work that just captures my attention and brings me to tears, makes me laugh, or makes me have to set it down and go, “Whoa.”

It is so fulfilling to support and celebrate other creatives.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Resilience. Oh, man. That one word holds so much meaning to not just myself but to my whole community of family, friends and supporters. I am currently choreographing a contemporary dance that chronicles our journeys through COVID. It has made all my dancers relive some hard times that we were forced to navigate and we have found out together how resilient we have had to be to get to the other side of this pandemic.

The same is true for myself as well. When the world shut down and we were all forced to stay at home, we all found our own ways to cope with the changes. I found time to write while juggling homeschooling my children and navigating the world of dance through the lens of a Zoom camera. It wasn’t easy and there were huge sacrifices that had to be made. But we are coming out the other side far more resilient than when we went in.

The Green Shoe Sanctuary was born shortly before the pandemic hit, but it became a great source of comfort for myself. I found that diving into stories and poetry created by others was a wonderful way to decompress from a stressful day, and being able to send that “Congratulations!” letter to a wonderful creative was so rewarding each and every time.

I continue to write and dance and I couldn’t imagine any other life for myself.

Contact Info:

• Website: Https://thegreenshoesanctuary.Wordpress.com
• Instagram: @tappyhour5 and @thegreenshoesanctuary

Image Credits
Cydney Sheneman, Oh Hello Paper Company