When asked if she’s a rule breaker, the Michigan-born writer of countless poems, stories, books, musical compositions and the creator of multi-media performances, Georgia Shreve responds, “I don’t consciously break rules.” With a look in her eyes that is disarmingly earnest she quickly adds, “I just ignore them.”
Of course, Shreve is speaking about her number one passion - creativity.
The twists and turns of her creative and intellectual life throughout the decades have been both challenging and thrilling. In her mid twenties in order to pursue and support her artistic passions, Shreve became one of the first female investment bankers. “I wanted access to things that everyone claimed to be impossible for women.” To that end, she also pursued an advanced degree in philosophy, an area that was noteworthy for providing women with limited to no access. She also avidly pursued a life as a serious composer, a landscape dominated by the great names of the past. Nonetheless and despite the lack of support and validation for the creative efforts of women in any of these fields, Shreve remained undeterred.
Perhaps it was due to her early upbringing that Shreve persisted. Born into a family where books dominated the home and a father who dutifully read to his daughters every night without fail, Georgia grew up a lifelong student, voraciously consuming knowledge and thereby acquiring confidence through intellectual prowess. Today she is in possession of more than four advanced degrees and is currently in the process of earning another. As a writer and composer, Georgia Shreve is also equipped with a deep understanding of the psychology and overall benefits of creativity; a powerful paradigm she identified and published in MAPP Magazine at PENN heralding in, “The Creativity Circuit.” Her newly designed podcast that goes by the same name, seeks to explore the fundamental creative processes of other creative voices while also sharing news of her own creative outpourings.
“I am highly sensitive to images and color as well as to sound and words and it is thrilling to combine them all in one work. I have learned that creative work brings me both joy and wisdom as well as demanding self-discipline.” - Georgia Shreve
Georgia is also vastly inspired by the stories of courageous women of antiquity as was demonstrated in New York’s prestigious Alice Tully Hall in April 2022. As the world prepared to exit the pandemic, her newest semi-operatic oratorios, “Lavinia” and “Anna Komnene,” each more than a half hour in length and scored for a 62- piece orchestra and solo voices, saw their world premieres. Both unique works were performed in a semi-staged format featuring costumes and visuals conceived by Georgia herself. But there is much more in store with new recordings of “Lives of a Woman,” and a powerful “Requiem for the 20th Century,” alongside two new novels called, “The Process,” and “Bodies of Waters.”
Georgia Shreve’s personality is marked by an unbridled devotion to art and beauty in every realm.“I owe my life’s work to the fact that I never gave up on my passion.”
No doubt her quest will be inspiring heroines for generations to come.