Show Notes
Why do we chase creative sparks that burn bright and hot one moment, only to flicker and die the next?
In this debut episode of Lodestar, sisters Finola Merivale (composer / musician) and Tamzin Merivale ( writer/visual artist) introduce the podcast’s mission: to explore the messy yet magical relationship we all have with our creativity. They share why they decided to begin this podcast and how they’ve created a space to interview writers, artists, musicians, filmmakers and more about how they navigate the highs and lows, feast and famine of a life in the arts. In this episode, you can learn more about Tamzin and Finola and hear about their own eclectic careers in music, visual art and writing. Drawing on their diverse experiences, spanning across continents, they set the stage for candid conversations about what it’s really like to have a creative job.
About your hosts:
Finola Merivale is a composer of acoustic and electro-acoustic music, based between France and Ireland. She is currently a 2025–26 Fellow at Columbia University’s Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris. Her music has been described as “edgy and discomforting, yet exciting and distinctive," by The Wire and "a wild ride," by The Washington Post. Finola completed her DMA in Composition at Columbia University.
Tamzin Merivale is a visual artist and writer, on a mission to explore diverse stories and to guide people to process their life experiences through art. Tamzin’s visual art facilitates people in their quest to unearth their true, powerful selves — work which is unique and transformational. Tamzin’s writing was recently published in the New York Times best-selling memoir The Book of Alchemy (2025) by Suleika Jaouad, alongside Gloria Steinem, Elizabeth Gilbert, Salman Rushdie and more.
Subscribe now, leave a review, send it to your friends and join the conversation on social — #lodestarpodcast. Got a story about creative resilience or want to jump in on a challenge? Get in touch on Instagram @tamzinmerivale and @finolamerivale
Production and audio editing by Finola Merivale Theme music by Finola Merivale
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More from Lodestar with Tamzin and Finola
Firstly, apologies to listeneres for this very late release! In this final episode of Season 1, Tamzin and Finola dig into a thought-provoking Creativity Challenge set by poet Jason Allen-Paisant. Jason asked us to take some moments in silence and contemplate where our creative work sits in relation to the circle we are part of, including our ancestors and descendants.
Jason Allen-Paisant is a Jamaican scholar, poet and writer. His work explores how Afro-diasporic artists and communities shape their futures through embodied philosophies, focusing on the intersections of poetry and philosophy. His second book of poems, Self-Portrait as Othello won two of the most prestigious poetry prizes in the world: both the Forward Prize and the T.S. Eliot Prize – a rare feat. His debut collection, Thinking with Trees won the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Poetry and was named a Book of the Year by The Irish Times. His stunning memoir The Possibility of Tenderness: A Jamaican Memoir of Plants and Dreams was published last year, to critical acclaim. Jason is also Professor of Critical Theory and Creative Writing at the University of Manchester.
In this Creativity Challenge episode, Tamzin and Finola discuss whether or not they embraced the idea of "boredom." In the last episode, GRAMMY-nominated composer Emma O'Halloran pulled a card from the Oblique Strategies card deck – a deck full of creative prompts designed by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt. The card that came up for our challenge was "Do Something Boring."
Irish composer Emma O'Halloran was fresh off the plane from the GRAMMYs when we sat down with her to discuss her nomination for Best Opera Recording. She is the first woman composer from Ireland to be nominated for a GRAMMY in the classical field. Her two operas – Trade and Mary Motorhead – received international critical acclaim. They were called “remarkable,” by the Irish Independent, and the LA Times wrote that, “No Irish Opera has entered the standard repertory, but that is about to change.”
In this next Creativity Challenge episode, Tamzin and Finola sit down to discuss the task set for them by award-winning film-maker Payal Kapadia, called "Correspondence." For the challenge, the sisters created video letters for each other. Finola wrote her video letter from snowy Sweden and Tamzin made hers in Morocco. Tune in to hear about the process of creating these videos.