We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nick Vafiadis a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Nick , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s jump back to the first dollar you earned as a creative? What can you share with us about how it happened?

This year my video podcast ‘Banned Book Club’ reached monetization status on YouTube. We’ve also been featured on Amazon’s list of ten best literary podcasts, and have won two Houston WorldFest Film Festival awards including best in category. It’s been very exciting, I never expected any kind of compensation for what we were doing, but the real surprise and reward is seeing that there is still an audience for misunderstood books. Literature and the arts overall are in a bad spot right now, There’s a tendency for people to reduce everything down to a trite message or political tool, and many great books are being rejected entirely or appropriated to further some kind of agenda. It’s been so encouraging to see that people like our viewers are also fed up with this harmful approach to art. Good books are vessels of truth, artistic machines that widen consciousness and increase empathy. I think people’s willingness to engage with the important and challenging ideas explored in great literature is one metric for society’s health. I’m happy to admit that I was wrong in the thinking I had before starting the show, that no one really reads anymore, that people these days prefer art that anesthetizes over art that challenges. This project has proved to me that people do still care, that they will always be hungry to go beyond themselves and embrace a fuller view of things, even in times where serious thinking and feeling have effectively become countercultural. I have to thank everyone who attempted to suppress these books and inadvertently brought them back them back into the cultural spotlight. Most of all I have to thank our viewers, whose curiosity and desire to make up their own minds made all of this possible.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m a writer, podcaster, and student of literature, I’ve always been excited by the possibilities of language. When I was told in graduate school that I would need to have an established audience in order to have a chance at publishing a book, I started my podcast ‘Banned Book Club’, to promote and discuss controversial literature. It began as a means to an end, but quickly became an end in itself. I realized that sharing books and ideas that enrich people’s lives is its own reward. I also realized through the engagement of our audience that there is a profound need in the culture right now for stories and knowledge that go beyond the surface level. People are returning to challenging books out of a desire for understanding, of themselves, others, and the confusing times that we live in. My team and I are just happy to help facilitate that process in whatever way we can. We don’t want our viewers to take any sort of political message away from our episodes, just a greater appreciation for this Bob Marley quote, “The truth is an offense, but not a sin.”

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

To introduce people to material that will increase their empathy and improve their lives.

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

Improve education. Not everyone is an artist, but we all have an inherent sensitivity to beauty and order that deserves to be cultivated. If the school systems did a better job of developing student’s relationship to art, then the average person would expect more from our culture than Marvel, sitcoms, reboots, pop, and other creative junk food. Higher demand for good art would lift more valuable artists to a place of prominence, and there might be something like a renaissance in our culture as a result.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://bannedbookclubpodcast.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bannedbookclubpod
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bannedbookclubpod
• Twitter: https://x.com/banned_bookclub
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/bannedbookclubpodcast

Image Credits

Nikolas Kyriakou Fourth Floor Photography