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

Roxana, appreciate you joining us today. One of our favorite things to hear about is stories around the nicest thing someone has done for someone else – what’s the nicest thing someone has ever done for you?

The kindest thing anyone can ever do for me is to show genuine interest in my work. Listen to my music, read my stories, ask questions, and try to dig deeper, because everything I create has layers and there is always room to learn more about it. I am beyond thrilled to wake up every day and know that I actually have a small community of wonderful and kind people from all over the globe who do exactly that!

They call themselves “GloomyVerse™ Detectives” after “GloomyVerse™” – the connected universe of musical fairytales that I am creating. They are detectives because they try to find easter eggs, clues, and solve puzzles I create for them in my artwork, songs, short stories, music videos, and soon, my very first novel!

They are always kind and attentive; they support me when I am down, and I do my best to do the same in return. I feel very lucky to have people who genuinely care about this small magical world I am creating. They make it all worth it!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am first and foremost a storyteller. Whether it’s music, art, or written stories, it’s always about characters, symbolism, and making the viewer/listener/reader feel something. I come from a small town in the middle of nowhere in a whole different part of the world. My family never really had the resources to help me pursue my dreams, so I had to figure out my path on my own, teach myself what I didn’t know how to do, and slowly build up to the point where I am right now.

For the past decade, I have been writing orchestral music, alternative rock/emo songs, drawing on real and digital canvases, and writing short stories all set in the same connected realm I call GloomyVerse™. It’s a dark place with a purple sky and upside-down snowfall that might not actually even be snow at all… It’s home to lost souls, talking pumpkins, and, of course, my Shadow Monsters, of which there are five. Gossamer, Murky, Volter, Grin, and Flick are five shadowy brothers that play their unique roles in my Garden of Gloom.

I am currently writing my first novel that will tell their story and invite the reader to visit this mysterious realm I’ve been slowly creating over these years.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

First of all, I believe genuine creativity would thrive if society stopped measuring it through the lens of algorithms, social media reach and audience retention. I think creative works should be measured by their quality, amount of thought and effort put into it as well as attention to detail and other important elements instead of shock value and like / view count. There are plenty of beautiful things in the world that cannot be digested within 15 seconds. Maybe there should be online spaces for creatives to share their works and be sorted out equally depending solely on their genre / sub-genre (for an easier search) and the quality of their work and not on their status, money, connections, etc. Without any chance to use shortcuts to alter the system from the outside. That would inspire young creatives to work harder for the quality of what they do while having a little more confidence in their creative future instead of inspiriting young people to make cheap shock content that has no long-term value, only for the sake of instant gratification.

I also think that society should come back to the idea of paying for the art, whether it’s a song, a painting or an electronic book, for example. Because it’s not an easy job. Writing a good song, for example, may be harder than building a designer chest of drawers with a signature color palette and golden accents, and writing a proper fantasy book may be an equivalent of fully renovating a 3-story Victorian house with all the attention for time-appropriate decor. It’s hard work that shouldn’t be taken for granted. I also think that streaming is killing art right now. Music industry is practically dead making its final breaths, cinema is in agony, etc. I think we should come back to the idea of paying for the art and thus inspiring creatives to do a better job as well as recognizing those who work hard. As I always say, quality over quantity, not the other way around.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

The main thing that drives me every day to continue creating is my sense of responsibility to my characters and my stories. At this point my characters have already become my second family. They are my friends that I already know very well yet still continue learning something new about every day. For example, I may do things around the house and imagine a phrase in my head, and think – that’s what Murky would say, or this joke is very much in Flick’s style, haha. I know that I have to keep going in order to make their stories known to the world. Because if I don’t do it, then no one else will.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.roxanaline.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/roxanalinemusic/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/roxanaandrealine
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/RoxanaLine
• Other: https://thegloomyverse.com/

Image Credits
Roxana Line, Alexander Verbitskiy, Denis Rudchenko, CodyWard, Matt Burke