We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Miriam Rieck. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Miriam below.

Miriam, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

In my early twenties, I decided I wanted an experience-driven life. I didn’t know then that I was a polymath(someone built for many creative lanes) or that my 3/5 Projector design and Gallup strengths were already shaping the way I moved through the world: curious, strategic, intuitive and unwilling to settle for a life that didn’t feel half-lived.

One of my boldest risks came in my early forties, when I returned to photography and began exploring musicians and live music. I had this clear, almost cinematic vision of photographing one of Josh Groban’s tours in iconic theatres. I had no connections, no press pass, no insider path. So I built a full mock-up book, complete with layouts and imagined images, and tried to get it to his team. When that went nowhere, I turned to social media and created a series called Letters to Josh Groban (still floating out there in internet-land), making a personal appeal. One of the videos even hit 50K views.

I took that risk because I needed to prove to myself that I could pursue something big without letting fear, or the echoes of childhood trauma, make the decisions for me. The real win wasn’t access; it was discovering that I could create, pitch, fail publicly, and still keep going.

That dedication to experience over outcome is how I work today as a writer and photographer at 62–63: always learning, always evolving, always becoming.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Like most people, I followed the path I was told would make me successful. I built a life around responsibility and doing what was expected, while my creativity survived in the margins. What I didn’t realize was how much early-childhood trauma shaped those choices. Teaching me to chase safety instead of alignment. It wasn’t until my 40s that I admitted I wasn’t living as a whole or authentic human being. That unraveling became the foundation of On Becoming: Essays for Life’s Later Chapters. Essays about this lifelong journey of integrating the past, rebuilding a truer life, unbecoming and reinvention at all ages.

I’ve always been a writer, and photography found me in my early twenties. My creative work now lives at the intersection of honesty, reinvention, and the beauty in ordinary moments. Because art doesn’t support me full time, I work remotely as a virtual administrivia-bookkeeper and carry my professional and lived experience into the life I’m shaping at 62–63.

Substack is where my voice stretches further. I write weekly about women’s rights, aging, and the return of matriarchal thinking. As someone who lived both before and after Roe v. Wade, my work holds a generational perspective, one shaped by witnessing freedoms gained, lost, contested, and being fought for all over again. It’s an ongoing thought process, not a finished stance.

What sets my work apart is that it’s lived, not theoretical. I write from the middle of things—with emotional clarity, dry humor, and a refusal to look away from the truth. After decades of suppressing my creative life, I’m finally letting it lead. And if there’s one thread through all my work, it’s this: it is never too late to integrate what shaped you, reclaim your voice, and begin the life you were meant to live.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

If we want a thriving creative ecosystem, we have to start valuing the people who make the work—not just the work itself. Artists and creatives need time, safety, and community more than anything. That means making room for unconventional lives, honoring nonlinear paths, and recognizing that creativity doesn’t flourish under constant economic pressure.

Society can support us by funding arts programs, creating affordable housing options for working creatives, and making space for intergenerational mentorship—where older artists like me, building new chapters in our 60s, are included instead of made invisible. Most importantly, we need to shift the belief that creativity is a luxury. It’s not. It’s infrastructure for the human spirit. When artists are supported, whole communities rise.”

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

I think the hardest thing for non-creatives to understand is that a creative life rarely looks clean or linear from the outside. For many of us, myself included it’s something many of us circled for years before we’re brave enough to claim it. I spent decades doing what was expected, building stability, and tucking my writing and photography into the edges of my life. It wasn’t until my 40s and 50s that I began to unravel that version of myself and rebuild from a more honest place.

What people need to understand is that we are all creative and creativity isn’t a hobby. It’s a way of processing the world, of making meaning, of staying alive inside our own lives. It also doesn’t always pay the bills, especially later in life, and many of us juggle remote work or other jobs while still pouring everything we have into our craft. But that doesn’t make it less real. It makes it more courageous.

If there’s any insight in my journey, it’s this: creative timing is not tied to age. Reinvention can happen at 25 or 65. And your voice is still worth claiming, even if you’re the last one to believe in it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://miriamrieck.me AND https://www.wyldesoulphotography.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wyldesoul/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/miriam-rieck-024910b/
• Other: Book for Sale:
  https://books.by/miriam-rieck

  Substack:
  https://miriamrrieck.substack.com/

Image Credits

The Borzoi and I are from James Nowak
Horse Images are from Jim Edmondson
The rest are me or taken by friends
The “headshot” is Christopher Zebo