554 - Get Back to Creativity that Actually Helps Your Mental Health with Gemma Correll

Summary

Creative Pep Talk – Episode 554

“Get Back to Creativity that Actually Helps Your Mental Health”

Guest: Gemma Correll
Host: Andy J. Pizza
Release Date: May 6, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the intricate connection between creativity and mental health—looking honestly at how creative work can be both a sanctuary and a source of new pressures. Andy J. Pizza chats with legendary illustrator and graphic memoirist Gemma Correll about her latest book, Anxiety Land, art journaling as a form of therapy, and how to cultivate an authentic, sustainable creative practice that truly supports mental well-being. They reminisce about the early days of online creative communities, candidly discuss the risks and rewards of sharing vulnerable work, and share practical insights for all creatives seeking a healthier relationship with their art.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Origins and Evolution of Creative Practice and Mental Health

• Andy notes how creativity began as a mental health tool, but over time pressure and identity can become tangled with creative output, sometimes to a harmful degree.

  “Its purpose was very pro mental health. And then the more seriously I took my creative practice... it can turn into something that really eats away at my mental health.” – Andy [00:00]

• Gemma describes always having used art, particularly comics and personal journaling, as a way to process her emotions.

  “I've always kind of naturally just drawn my personal thoughts and feelings from when I was a kid...it was pretty cathartic for me to make the work.” – Gemma [29:06]

2. Nostalgia for Earlier Internet Art Communities

• Both remember the early 2000s Flickr and Tumblr days fondly, where artists’ work was easy to find, community-oriented, and less driven by algorithms or trends.

  “I miss just actually being able to communicate with other artists and actually see their work is a good start...it just felt so much more like a community than it does now...It's the fault of the algorithm.” – Gemma [10:20]

• They hold out hope that art can return to more focused, community-driven spaces even as digital platforms evolve.

  “I would love to see some of that kind of come back...these are all people that are nerding out about the art.” – Andy [12:07]

3. The Creation and Structure of Anxiety Land

• Anxiety Land is a graphic memoir with a unique format: a theme park inside Gemma’s head, mapping out different mental health experiences (panic attacks, therapy, etc.). It’s both personal narrative and visual metaphor.

  “It is a memoir...it's over 400 pages long. It's also built around the framework of this theme park in my head that's called Anxiety Land.” – Gemma [17:03]

• Andy applauds its accessibility—funny, heavy, and relatable for anyone who struggles with anxiety or knows someone who does.

4. Facing the Fear of Vulnerability and Mental Health Stigma

• There’s an honesty about the challenge of revisiting painful memories and the balance required to turn personal pain into creative work.

  “Making the book was like the most...extreme exposure therapy devices I've ever seen. This is fully spending time inviting these things into your life.” – Andy [20:51]

• Gemma reflects on the cathartic but difficult process of looking back at her younger self with compassion.

  “Most of the emotion I felt...was just sadness for myself and my younger self and what I went through. Just like completely feeling alone and having no clue what was going on.” – Gemma [21:17]

5. The Power of Storytelling and Analogy in Building Understanding

• The effectiveness of creative analogies, storytelling, and multi-modal communication (visuals, comics) for helping others grasp what living with anxiety is like.

  “Use analogies, find analogies...it is one of the only ways to help people understand.” – Andy [24:06]
  “I think the more different angles that you can come at it with to explain to people, the better—the analogies, the visual, the...everybody has a different learning style.” – Gemma [25:21]

6. The Double-Edged Sword of Sharing Personal Work Online

• While making the work is therapeutic, sharing it publicly is now more fraught—Gemma feels the ambivalence and pressure of widespread visibility.

  “Making the work is always cathartic for me...but I find it difficult to share the work now because I'm so conscious that it's so personal.” – Gemma [29:04]
  “Sharing stuff online just feels a bit like throwing it into the void…it’s not until I go to, like, an event…that I realize that it is actually real.” – Gemma [32:19]

7. The Process of Making a Graphic Memoir

• Both discuss the technical and creative challenges of turning a huge, nonlinear personal story into a readable, engaging visual narrative.

• Gemma’s creative process: stream-of-consciousness drafts, arranging physical pages on a wall, and balancing planned structure with spontaneity.

  “I sat down with a ream of printer copier paper, and I just went from the beginning and I wrote and I drew everything together...I stuck them up on the wall.” – Gemma [36:34]

• The importance (and struggle) of authenticity in art without over-polishing or losing vitality.

8. Tapping into Authenticity and Generating Ideas

• Gemma recommends daily sketchbooking without intent to share, reviewing old ideas, and “doodling just to doodle” to rediscover authenticity and get unstuck—especially when people-pleasing or masking gets in the way.

  “Just making the art and trying to convince myself that nobody's gonna see it…it's the only thing that really works.” – Gemma [46:33]

• Use the “back window” method: trick yourself into honesty by making something with the intention to destroy it—often, you won’t need to burn it after all.

  “What if you just make a page of art and writing...and you plan on burning it...Often at the end you’re like, I don’t need to burn this.” – Andy [49:44]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On nostalgia for creative community:

  “It just felt so much more like a community than it does now. And that's not the fault of any of the people. It's the fault of the algorithm.”
  — Gemma [10:20]

• On the real physicality of anxiety:

  “It doesn't work. The body will reject it, like, mentally and physically. It'll come out in some way.”
  — Gemma [19:42]

• On authentic art versus trend-chasing:

  “There's always gonna be trends in art, but it does feel like people now feel like they have to adhere to a trend or they're just gonna disappear into the air.”
  — Gemma [12:33]

• On approaching creative ideas:

  “You have to kind of fall into it. And the only way to do that is like making stuff. And it's very annoying…but it's fun when it happens.”
  — Andy [44:47]

• On overcoming creative fear:

  “Sometimes it's hard for me to access what I really think and really be present...sometimes comes out where I do want to share it. Does it. It makes me think, like, I need to put in my...will, it's like, burn those [sketchbooks].”
  — Andy [47:33]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:00–07:13]: Introduction, context on creativity + mental health, Gemma’s background
• [10:03–12:57]: Nostalgia about early creative internet, shift to algorithm-driven platforms
• [17:03–25:21]: Anxiety Land, structure and mission, how art helps (and sometimes hurts)
• [29:04–36:36]: The emotional impact of sharing personal work; internet’s “void” effect
• [36:34–41:43]: Craft/Process: how to make a graphic memoir, physical arranging, authenticity
• [42:53–49:44]: Idea generation tips, authenticity struggles, “back window” creative method
• [46:33–49:44]: Making art no one will see, using privacy as a tool for honesty

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Creative Call to Adventure & Practical Takeaways

• Back Window Exercise: Make a page of art and writing, planning to destroy it—see what emerges when the pressure to share is gone. You may discover your most authentic ideas.
• Sketchbook Habit: Doodle and write freely every day, transfer recurring ideas forward, and give yourself permission for some things to stay private.
• Community Restoration: Seek or make small creative circles (online or off) where honest sharing and genuine connection are possible—counteracting the algorithm problem.

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Where to Find Anxiety Land and Gemma Correll

• Anxiety Land is published by Gallery Books (Simon & Schuster); links available from the publisher site and in show notes.
• Gemma Correll: gemmacorrell.com
• Andy J. Pizza: andyjpizza.com

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Final Thought

This episode is a heartfelt reminder that creativity is meant to serve your mental well-being, not undermine it. Through humor, vulnerability, and practical advice, Andy and Gemma leave listeners inspired to reclaim personal creative practices in a way that genuinely heals and connects.

Stay pepped up!

Transcript

[Andy J. Pizza]

Is your creative practice helping or hurting you? This is a weird question because I don't know about you, but for me, creativity definitely started in a place where it was about helping me cope with boring things, having fun, processing stuff like it was. Its purpose was very pro mental health. And then the more seriously I took my creative practice, the more. More that that thing kind of became imbalanced, where there are lots of times where my relationship to my creativity has all this pressure or all this identity wrapped up in it, and it can turn into something that really eats away at my mental health. And so today, I'm super pumped to talk to Gemma Carell, who wrote this book, Anxiety Land, wrote and illustrated this graphic memoir. But Gemma is somebody who I think of as an artist that is deeply in touch with making art for herself. She's someone that I've known for a long time, all the way back 2007,ish, maybe. We both went to art school in the UK. She's actually British. I'm American now. She lives in America. But I've known her for a long time, and I've known that she has this personal creative practice of art journaling and really getting all of this out of her head and onto the page. And so I was thrilled to hear that she had this book coming out and that we could have a conversation about all of this and what she's learned both from doing that in her own time, then turning that into a career, and then turning that into a book. If you don't know Jimmy Carell, what the heck are you doing, man? She is a legend in the illustration, creative space, and also just the world. Like, hey, the quotes on the back of this book, we've got Maria Bamford, standup comedian, says, get Gemma's work in your life as a mood stabilizer. And another standup comedian I really like, Gary Goleman, says, made me feel good because it's funny, of course, but more importantly, I felt less alone from page one, nay, from the COVID It's as valuable as months of talk therapy. Have to agree. This thing hit me like a ton of bricks. And it's. It's like a brick, but it's fully illustrated so you can work right through it. Like, very accessible and in fun and funny and sad and poignant and powerful. Highly recommend you go check it out. But first, listen to this chat that I have with Gemma. We talk about making comics autobiographical work. We talk about making creative work for mental health purposes and what the power of that is and also the pitfalls to watch out for and we talk about. We. We start the conversation having some nostalgia about earlier Internet days and creative community and how it was in little pockets of the Internet and how some of that is maybe coming back now that it's less centralized as like the main thing on the Internet. We dream about visions of what that could look like. This was an absolute blast. At the end, I'm going to come back with our creative call to adventure. Actually, Jim is going to end the conversation with it. We're going to call it Back Window and it's about how do you get yourself to show up authentically and honestly? How do you actually get in touch with that? The real thoughts and voices of who you are in your head and getting it down onto the page because that's really, really difficult. But it's so essential to get your best ideas. And Gemma has a lot of great things to say about that. We'll get to that at the end, so stick around for that. But for now let's get to this chat with the great Jim Ocarell who I will say last thing I'll say she did an amazing job at getting tons of awareness around mental health issues on the Internet and has been doing that for a long time. Way before it was cool, all around anxiety and just the struggles of that, but also done an incredible amount of awareness for pugs generally. I think she really got people to know about pugs. Love pugs. She had this design that said pugs not drugs. You might have seen that on the Internet for over a decade. Just done tons of important work and I was thrilled to catch up with her. Here's my chat with Jim Ocarella on the creative journey. It's easy to get lost, but don't worry, you'll lift up. Sometimes you just need a creative pep talk. Foreign. If you've been listening to the podcast lately, you know I am a big believer in simplifying your wardrobe so that you have a few really nice pieces that mix and match and elevate your style. But you don't have to spend tons of time thinking about it. So you can spend all that decision making potential on your creative work and not just getting dressed and looking decent. Quints makes that easy. When I go to a talk or go to an event, my Quinn shirts are my go to. In fact, I just snagged the 100% European linen relaxed short sleeve shirt for my spring summer events that I have coming up. I can wear it on its own or open with a little graphic tee. Stylish, breathable, Dare I say even a little bit snazzy. Even. Everything is priced 50 to 80% less than what you'd find at similar brands. Quints works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen. So you're getting premium materials without the markup. Refresh your everyday with luxury you'd actually use. Head to quint.com Pep Talk for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com Pep Talk for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com Pep Talk this episode is sponsored by Squarespace. I freaking love having Squarespace as a sponsor because it's easy to sell it when you love something this much. I'm a big fan. Squarespace is an all in one website platform designed to help you succeed online. Here's what I love about Squarespace. They're intuitive and super versatile. Drag and drop tools mean you can make a custom website without knowledge of code. That makes people say, whoa, who made that for you? Looks like you built that from scratch. People have really said stuff like that to me about my site and I built it myself quite easily with Squarespace. You can check it [e-mail] if you want to check that out. What I did with it, it doesn't look templatey and it screams my creative brand. I also love that I have all of my domains through Squarespace now, which makes it seamless and easy to manage. I know the first thing, as creative folks do when we get an idea is to grab that URL. Now you can keep track of all your websites and your domains in one place. That's super intuitive and easy to manage. Head to squarespace.com pep talk for a free trial and when you're ready to launch, use promo code pep talk, all one word to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. First of all, I love this book. Had had an had a powerful experience reading it and engaging with it. So first of all, I just want to say congrats and thank you for making it.

[Gemma Correll]

Thank you so much. Thank you for reading reading it.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, I loved it and I want to get deep into that in a minute. But first I thought I would just want to pick a bone. Is that. Is that the phrase?

[Gemma Correll]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

A bone to pick with you. Yeah, I almost had it. A bone to pick with you. And it comes from this book. It's very serious and I just have to ask, what is the deal with Mushroom and pineapple pizza.

[Gemma Correll]

Well, I. If I had to, if I wasn't allowed pineapple, I'd go with mushroom. I love mushrooms. I have mushrooms on pasta, pizza, everything. But I just really like the sweetness of pineapple on a pizza and only really specifically on, like an American pizza. If I have a Neapolitan style pizza, I'm not going to put pineapple on there.

[Andy J. Pizza]

That makes sense.

[Gemma Correll]

I'm gonna have mushroom.

[Andy J. Pizza]

But you have some standards here.

[Gemma Correll]

I have a certain amount of standards, but once it's. Once it's like Domino's Pizza. It's like, no, I'm going full in on the mushroom and the pineapple and the garlic sauce.

[Andy J. Pizza]

It's. You know, as the pizza guy, I have to be honest. These are my two. Never in top two that I'm like, anything but those two. So it's not even that mushrooms I actually don't like, but pineapple. It's just that I'm like, you're. It just feels like it changes what I'm eating so dramatically away from pizza. And in fact, the pizza book that I made, we made a visual joke where the pizza actually implodes. The last topping that gets added is pineapple. So that's the one that makes it all go wrong. So I had to address that. I'm sorry to get to the controversial stuff.

[Gemma Correll]

I mean. No, I totally understand. And yeah, I. I think it's pretty gross as well, but I can't help but love it. I think it's from growing up. Like, at birthday parties, a big treat would be pineapple and cheese on a stick. So I think it's like a pullover from that. Yeah, the cheese and pineapple combo, that totally makes sense.

[Andy J. Pizza]

And that's, you know, there's a lot of vulnerability sharing in here that I really appreciated. And that one was, you know, up there for, hey, I'm just gonna own it. I am a pineapple on pizza person. So, yeah, hats off for that. I think this is your third time being on the show. Is that true?

[Gemma Correll]

You know, second, I think.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Second. Okay.

[Gemma Correll]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I feel like maybe we did an. I did an episode. Maybe it wasn't a full episode, but we recorded something at Icon Illustration Conference years and years ago.

[Gemma Correll]

Okay. Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

So I feel like there might be two separate times. The first one might have been part of a different episode or something like that, but. But yeah, I really appreciate you coming back and it's good to see you because we've known each other for a long time. Really?

[Gemma Correll]

Yeah, really. Since the early days of like, Flickr, Tumblr, all those old social media sites that are still around, I guess, but in some form. Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Do you miss anything from that era?

[Gemma Correll]

Yeah, I miss just actually being able to communicate with other artists and actually see their work is a good start. Like now I feel like half the time I don't even see the work of people I follow on social media unless I specifically go looking for it. Before, back in the day, it used to just be you'd log on and immediately everybody's work that they'd made in that few days, you would see, you could interact with, everybody would be back and forth, commenting, chatting. It just felt so much more like a community than it does now. And that's not the fault of any of the people. It's the fault of the algorithm.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I'm glad you said that because I think to me, this is maybe my desperation for finding a silver lining. But I do feel like the post static image, Instagram and art being really. I feel like at the center of culture for a minute feels very depressing. But at the same time, it makes me hopeful that maybe we'll get back to art being a little bit countercultural and really being in communities online even, that are people that care about that and want to talk about that, not people that just want to critique it or.

[Gemma Correll]

It would be nice if we could find a new place. Yeah, it would be really nice because obviously videos and everything is great, and it's nice to see different types of art, but I do miss just seeing straight up still images of comics and art that people have made and people not feeling like they have to have some gimmick to get it seen.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Very true. Because, like, my experience of, like, the Flickr days and the Tumblr days was like, these are all people that are nerding out about the art. Like, they're searching for art. They're not, like, being fed things and waiting to be hooked. They're. They're being curious. They're being. They're engaged in the search even of finding interesting things. Yeah, I would love to see some of that kind of come back.

[Gemma Correll]

Yeah. And less sort of memeification of art as well. Making art just to make something, not necessarily trying to adhere to some trend that means your work's gonna actually get seen. There's always gonna be trends in art, but it does feel like people now feel like they have to adhere to a trend or they're just gonna disappear into the air.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Do you feel like that or do I mean, from my perspective, you're like an established legend in the creative world. I don't know how it feels from the inside, but yeah, I'm curious if that affects you.

[Gemma Correll]

I mean, I'm not trying to do that. Sometimes I feel like I should and then I talk myself out of it because I don't want to do that at this point. I mean, sometimes you see trends that you like and I see things like medieval art is a big thing at the moment and I love medieval art and I've already made comics that are sort of medieval based, so. But I'm not going to then change all of my. I'm not going to just make one kind of art. I want to still be making art from lots of different influences.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I see that there's a lot of like old timey jokes in all of your stuff. Like there's a lot of the old pub and all of like. And yeah, and also like circuses and clowns. And also there's. I feel like these are themes that you've been doing for a long time. So I like that kind of way that you made a distinction because I could see how that happens to me. It's a positive way that trends end up impacting me. When something kind of comes up in the culture and you're like, oh, that relates to something I really like, maybe I will explore a little bit more of that without dramatically changing what I'm doing.

[Gemma Correll]

Yeah. And I think as long as it's something that you genuinely like, then that comes across as well. And the art is not just kind of a one dimensional, like visual thing. It's like, no. I actually like reading books about medieval. The medieval period and like, I know weird things about how they used to think that there were worms in your tooth enamel that would gnaw it away. And there's always like a deeper level that can be found.

[Andy J. Pizza]

It's a great reference too. Do you like going to like Renaissance fairs and stuff like that too?

[Gemma Correll]

I've never been to a Renaissance fair, actually. I would like to go to one. And they're kind of a big thing around here where I live in California. So I think it will happen soon. I'm more of a museum nerd than a participation in history. Living history nerds, not reenactments and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

That's a whole other level, I think.

[Gemma Correll]

Yeah. I just don't have the patience to like dress up and make a. Make that kind of effort, to be honest.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Can you go without dressing up? Because I would go if I didn't have to dress up.

[Gemma Correll]

You can. Yeah, you can. You don't have to dress up. I probably wouldn't, but then I'd also kind of feel like I. I don't know. I'd feel bad if I didn't.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I have to say, like, I'm just really enjoying seeing you again and hearing from you. And I love your humor and perspective and it just. It also just feels nice because we haven't seen each other or talked in a long time, so. Yeah, just saying that again.

[Gemma Correll]

Oh, thank you. It's. Yeah, it's the thing I was saying before about not seeing people's work. And I feel like I'm still, like, I still see your work all the time, but because, like, there's like a constant barrage of other stuff, I feel like I don't interact with people as much and you don't know that I'm like looking at all your posts and enjoying everything you're making. And yeah, I'd really like to get back to that, where we're more interactive with each other.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I think if we could move on from being relevant to society and being more into the scene, it would be great if there was a space where we could get a little bit back to that. I would love that, just for all the reasons that you're saying. So could you tell us a little bit about the book? Like what it is and where it came from and. Yeah. How would. How do you talk about it when you introduce it to people?

[Gemma Correll]

Well, I made Anxiety Land as a memoir. So that is. Some people are surprised by that because they're used to seeing my work as more short form stuff. But it is a memoir. It's over 400 pages long. It's also built around the framework of this theme park in my head that's called Anxiety Land. So the framework is kind of. It starts off with this map of Anxiety Land with all the different rides that I've experienced, like the panic attack roller coaster. And then each section goes into the narrative memoir about my experiences with anxiety, with panic attacks, with depression and various aspects of mental health. And then also I talk about my time in a inpatient, outpatient psychiatric hospital, which is kind of the through running narrative of the whole book for people

[Andy J. Pizza]

that are watching on YouTube. I'm just going to show it. There's the Anxiety Land map. So many good gags and metaphors and it's just really powerful in that way. You know, I don't want to. I really don't want to dive too much into my own thing just because this isn't about me, but just to be. Just to kind of say thank you. I have, I'm sure tons of people since the pandemic have had some of the lower mental health points of their life. And I've had. I've talked a little bit on. On the show, but I'm not. Not super ready to go into details because I. I like to kind of talk about stuff after I'm over it and maybe not over it. I would love to be over it, but I don't know if that's a possibility.

[Gemma Correll]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

As I know you know, but just having struggled with panic and anxiety and just these different types of loops and ruminations, I just found the book very, very cathartic. And I was also really scared of it because I. I'm sure anybody that's had anxiety can relate to. If you're not in the thick of it, there can be this feeling of like, I don't even want to go there. I want to keep away from it. I don't want to think about it. Which is from my experience and my therapy and all of that. I think that impulse is often what prolongs it or. Or keeps it at its worst. And I feel like that's kind of at the heart of the book. Do you feel like that? Does that make sense?

[Gemma Correll]

Yes. That's kind of thing that I learned from being in the outpatient therapy. The kind of thing that stuck with me the most and something that I wish I'd learned much, much, much earlier, is that the more you try and push something away, the stronger it comes back. And that goes for anxiety. Just trying to, like, push everything down, like any kind of emotion, but particularly anxiety, it just. It doesn't work. The body will reject it, like, mentally and physically. It'll come out in some way. And it's not always easy to tell when anxiety is coming back as well. Like, sometimes for me, it'll be very physical, and then that can go into, am I feeling. Am I feeling sick? Am I feeling anxious? I think that it can be really hard to define it in yourself, and you have to really learn to notice the signs. And that just comes with time as well and experience as someone even just

[Andy J. Pizza]

a little bit afraid to engage. Reading the book, I have to imagine that making the book was like the most. This 400 page book. This is like one of the most extreme exposure therapy devices I've ever seen. This is fully spending time inviting these things into your life. Did it. Did it feel like that to you?

[Gemma Correll]

Yeah. Well, like you said earlier, about your own experience. I think that being outside it by like a couple of years really helped. I think that closer to the time that. That everything kind of went down would have been. It would have been too difficult. I was too close to it. But having that little bit of distance, you know, I had to go back through a bunch of journals that I'd made at the time. And that was. That was hard. But it was also pretty cathartic because I realized how far I'd come and how much I'd learned and going back like it goes way back into like childhood. And some of that was kind of hard to relive. Some of the memories of being a teenager and having my first panic attack. But most of the emotion I felt, the most really was just sadness for myself and my younger self and what I went through. Just like completely feeling alone and having no clue what was going on.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I felt that too, and I didn't. This is that kind of thing where sometimes not knowing what's appropriate stops you from communicating how you feel. So I don't know if this is appropriate, but I do just feel like I was feeling. Having experienced a percentage of what you've experienced, I found myself just feeling deeply compassionate for you and also all people that deal with mental health related struggles. It's such a. Until it sucks for me because I. Sucks for me, doesn't suck for me. It sucks because. And I always felt compassionate for people, but it wasn't until I experienced my own versions and what it's like to be at war with yourself in your head and how frightening that can be, that I really started to just empathize in this deep way with these battles that people are going through and then think about people that don't have any relationship to this, how easy it is for them to judge or discount.

[Gemma Correll]

Yeah, this is. Yeah, there's a certain level which you just, you just can't understand unless you've experienced it. And I've tried, I've done my very, very best to describe everything, come at it from like a visual angle as well, to add like an extra layer of a different kind of language. But yeah, there's only so much I can do. And obviously I would never wish anxiety on anybody. But yeah, you can only understand it really if you've experienced it.

[Andy J. Pizza]

But I think I was at a conference for introverts and neurodivergent people called the Slowdown Summit that I got invited to recently and one of the people doing a workshop on neurodivergence said something that I Thought, which is something that I've thought before, but it was interesting. It was really profound hearing it from somebody else. And they were saying, they were talking about advocating for yourself and they said, use analogies, find analogies. And I just thought that is what changed my life, knowing how to tell stories. And after I've done big memoir series and stuff like that, I was so moved to do story workshops, give story workshops and share everything I've learned about it because it is one of the only ways to help people understand. And I do think your book will do a lot for people that have experienced anxiety, but maybe even more for people that don't relate to this or don't understand or have people in their lives that have experienced this. Because I do think you've done such a good job of illuminating it in a way that it really comes to life and makes sense.

[Gemma Correll]

Thank you. Yeah, I hope so. I think the more different angles that you can come at it with to explain to people, the better the analogies, the visual, the. Yeah, everybody has a different learning style. Yeah. I think that as with nearly everything in life, the more information the better, as long as it's accurate information.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, that's good. Good little disclaimer. But it, you did a great job. And it's so accessible to so many different types of people because it's. Yeah, it's full and it's dense with real experience and, and storytelling, but it's just so easy to move through with which I think is very unique for this kind of topic. I could really use your help now as a rule, I try to give way way more on this show than I take. But every once in a while I have an ask. I think it's been about three years since my last big ask when we launched me and Sophie's book Invisible Things. And now its companion, Mysterious Things is on its way. And we could really, really use your help by buying a book and spreading the word. Pre orders can make or break a book success. If you can launch a book with momentum, it has a chance to get into people's hands. And we really, really want to get this book into kids hands because it was written to ignite kids curiosity to get them curious about our mysterious universe. And I don't know about you, but I am hoping this next generation is curious, open, full of wonder and engaged and excited about living life on this planet. If you pre order from our local bookshop, Bertie Books, you can get a copy that is signed by me and Sophie. There's also a bunch of links to everywhere else. You can get the book at InvisibleThings co. And by the way, I'm doing some talks to virtual groups so schools, companies and conferences in exchange for what's called a pre order book buy AKA buying copies for your group or the attendees. So if you've ever wanted to book me to speak, this is the least expensive it'll ever be. Write to me@hi dj pizza.com and I can walk you through how that works. If you love my art, this is one of my favorite collections of paintings that I've ever made. If you loved Invisible Things, you're going to love Mysterious Things. And if you have children, nieces, nephews, students or friends with kids in your life, ignite their curiosity with Mysterious Things. Pre order at InvisibleThings Co or click the link in the show notes. Thank you so much for your help. We really, really really appreciate it.

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[Andy J. Pizza]

One thing I want to ask about because I know for me making art about personal things, struggles, all of this in so many ways has helped me, but I also know it's not that black and white. Like could you speak a little bit to how putting yourself into this work, working through your stuff, in the work that you do, because you've done that for a long time, even before this book, maybe how it's helped, but also how it's been made things more complicated at times.

[Gemma Correll]

Yeah, yeah. I've always kind of naturally just drawn my personal thoughts and feelings from when I was a kid. And it was only really when I got to high school that I was started like drawing like little comics and sketchbooks. And then I got to college and that was the first time anyone saw these drawings. So it was all very initially very insular. I didn't share any of this with anybody. And then I got to college and my professors saw the work in my sketchbooks and not necessarily looking at it from a mental health angle, just seeing that this was the way that my brain worked and kind of said this is what you need to explore. I was doing a little bit of writing at the same time, and I was still kind of feeling like I was in a little box of what illustrations should be. So I was still trying to make paintings and do proper art and then doing my sketchbook stuff on the side. That's when my professor said, explore this a little bit more. And that's also around the time that I started to share the work on social media online. And because I'd always done it, it was pretty cathartic for me to make the work. And then I didn't know how it would be received by other people, but because in the friendly days of the old Internet, it was. It was received well, a lot of people found it relatable. That really bolstered me. I think that sharing work is a lot more fraught now. And there are times when it's been somewhat difficult for me to share the work. Making the work is always cathartic for me. It's the way that I've always naturally dealt with things. I don't find it difficult to make the work, but I find it difficult to share the work now because I'm so conscious that it's so personal. And I would never want to speak for anybody else's experience because, I don't know, everybody is so different. I can only talk about what's happened to me, and I think that sometimes I'm too conscious of that and I might shy away from talking about certain things. And with this book, I just thought, no, I have to put everything out on the table. There's no point holding anything back. I'm going to tell the truth about everything that happened.

[Andy J. Pizza]

And also, as someone who has anxiety and at times have been really cut off from people, it must just be such a. And a strange experience to go through periods of time where some of your very personal stuff has become so extremely visible online.

[Gemma Correll]

Yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Has your relationship improved with that over time?

[Gemma Correll]

Yeah, it's strange because it's so abstract for me.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Gemma Correll]

Sharing stuff online just feels a bit like throwing it into the void. And, you know, there's numbers on my Instagram account of my followers, but that's still so abstract. It's not until I go to, like, an event or something and I meet people that I realize that. That it is actually real. And I mean, that's just life on the Internet in general, I think, is. Everything can seem a little detached, like we're not quite relating to each other on the same level anymore, which is a shame.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, that's true. One of the things I love about artists and Creators and writers is that people that do stuff, the stuff they do does stuff to them. Like, it has an effect on them. Do you feel like this book did anything to you other than. I mean, it's such a gargantuan task. It might have broke you in some other way. Maybe that's part of it. But what do you feel like? Was there any before and after in terms of the experience of making this thing?

[Gemma Correll]

Yeah, I think that just laying everything out on the page in black and white and red, because I tend to live inside my head so much, seeing it in front of me in a kind of slightly detached way, as if I could be reading somebody else's story, really put a lot of things into perspective for me. It helped me kind of recognize a bit more the. The things that I've done that have helped or hindered me and. Yeah, sorry, what was your initial question?

[Andy J. Pizza]

It's just about whether. Whether what it did to you to. To do this thing.

[Gemma Correll]

Oh, yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I love what you said, but if you want to add anything, go ahead.

[Gemma Correll]

No, I think that's. Yeah, I think that's.

[Andy J. Pizza]

It's good. It's great. And I. I think very much the same thing of. One of the things about art that's really great is that it gives you an outside perspective on yourself. You can see yourself from. From the outside in a way that you can't when it's all in your head. And I think that that can be a really positive thing. One thing I want to talk about was the craft of making something like this. So if people that have listened to this show for a long time know that I made an audio memoir series that was six parts. It was about my ADHD and my relationship to my mom and. And also how that went with my creative journey. And then I've had conversations with people in the publishing world about turning it into a graphic memoir. I really like the. I've seen a few different people approach that in a similar format to you. I don't. I was wondering if you have tips. Help me. Because I thought about doing it. I've. I've definitely made a lot of stuff like that, like comics and stuff over on Instagram about this sort of thing. And I've written all these, like, stories and things that I would want to share, but I am. It's just scary. And also the format of it is kind of interesting. Anything you can tell me and people listening that helps with making something like this.

[Gemma Correll]

I mean, this was my first time making something that was like a full length Narrative as well. So it was pretty big learning curve for me. I'm used to being able to just sketch an idea out in a sketchbook, maybe maximum nine panels. I can do that all on one page. I can see the narrative there in front of me. Makes it a lot easier. This involved planning and structure, which are not things that I'm naturally good at. I've always. When I've. Even at school, when I was writing essays, I go in a stream of consciousness. I make no plans. I just write and write until I'm done and hope that it makes sense.

[Andy J. Pizza]

The pantsing model.

[Gemma Correll]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

You're flying by the seat of your pants. Yeah, I get that.

[Gemma Correll]

Yeah, Totally makes sense. Which, you know, is not really possible when you're writing a book that has an editor and other people looking at it. So how I made it was. I kind of went in for this dreamer consciousness method in that I sat down with a ream of printer copier paper, and I just went from the beginning and I wrote and I drew everything together because I can't do the two things separately. I tried. It doesn't work. And I stuck them up on the wall. I just cleared an entire wall in my house, and I stuck everything on the wall and I sent it all as it was to the editor. And when I needed to make changes, I literally got those pieces of paper and I cut them up and I stuck. I moved stuff around and I stuck images to other pieces of paper. It was the only way that I could get it to work. Because if I tried to write it and then edit it on a word processor, I couldn't picture how it would look on the page, which is. Is like such a massive part of it. It's also a reason why. I mean, I do sometimes draw comics in panels, like in square panels, but I couldn't think how that would work. I just. My brain just couldn't comprehend the exact same. Yeah, yeah.

[Andy J. Pizza]

That's why when anytime, like having been in publishing for a little while, every once in a while I'll pick up on a word that they're using. They're like, oh, I didn't know there was a word for that. Is there a word? Because I. I know this one and a handful of others that are kind of a similar art journaling type approach, because that was the same thing. I ran into is. As soon as I started trying to map it out, I was like, panels are not working. This doesn't make sense. And that was one of the things I really loved about that. And some of these others, do they have a name for this or not?

[Gemma Correll]

Not really, no.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Okay.

[Gemma Correll]

Yeah, I. Yeah, it's. I mean, the great thing about comics and graphic novels is that they can be anything. And you shouldn't feel that you have to do it a certain way because it's like a new frontier almost of like, as long as it's visual, it can be a graphic novel. And try not to put myself in a box metaphorically. And comics panel wise helped a lot because that's the way I've always made journals. And I've been making like sort of travel journals for a long time where I just work my way down the page again, stream of consciousness. Just. I have to kind of. I don't have an idea of the composition in my head, but I kind of have to figure it out as I go along how things are going to fit. And again, that sort of comes naturally to me. So the compositions of the pages were just kind of. That's how they pretty much were. Like from the rough stage to the final stage. Like things might have moved around a bit, but yeah, it's. I always try not to do too many roughs because I kind of feel like the art starts to lose like a little bit of looseness and vitality. So it was very much like a rough. And then one or two more drawings and then. And then that was it.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I find, I find a similar thing if I'm doing anything that's like line work especially. I don't want to get really tight if I'm doing comics and stuff like that. I try to do it. I try to do the final before I'm ready with it, like where I'm like still having to make decisions while I'm doing it a little bit. And I do a similar thing when I do. When I go to conferences or go to travel. I try to like. I take notes visually and it. You do kind of make it up, make up that composition as you go. Did you have. This is a little nerdier question, but did you have to make a font of your lettering for this one?

[Gemma Correll]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I already had one, which I made quite a long time ago when I was trying to make my work neater. And I was like, I should have a font, it will look better. And I used it for a little while and then I sort of abandoned it. I was like, no, it looks. It looks better handwriting, but I'm the same way.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I think I didn't spend enough time on the font that I made to where it just. I got Frustrated with it because I thought there's letters that I don't, don't feel like the way I do it or I do like it when it's handwritten. But I know a book of this magnitude is right. Yeah, you can't translate it and all that.

[Gemma Correll]

Exactly. Yeah, all the speech bubbles are handwritten, but the blocks of text are all fun. And yeah, it's going to be translated, so that's going to make it a lot easier for the translators to the whole world.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, well, congrats on that. And it does look. It doesn't look. It doesn't look like a font. I just knew. Not that that matters, but it feels like very, very like hand drawn and fresh and all that.

[Gemma Correll]

So, yeah, that's good. To me it looks really different and it's really obvious. But then when it was in the editing process, they'd be like, oh, is this like. We tried to edit this but we couldn't like get the font to work. I was like, oh, no, that's handwritten. So obviously to other people it's, it's not so different.

[Andy J. Pizza]

No, it looks, it looks very like handmade. My last question is, will you? We always end with a call to adventure. It's something you can do with stuff that you've heard or stuff that you can leave with to go put into action. And I'm wondering if you have a tip on what do you do when you're on a deadline either for a book or maybe for a comic that you have to do for a different publication or maybe even something for yourself and you don't have an idea that just comes to you like that. I love when an idea comes to me. That's great. That's like the easiest ones. But then there's other times where I'm like, I actually want to be making more stuff than that or I have to do it for some reason. And I have my own little tricks for trying to dig something out or come up with something. But what do you do?

[Gemma Correll]

Yeah, it's kind of actually pretty rare that an idea comes to me fully formed unless it is just kind of a personal, like a little thought and then that might be. That might be the comic. But most of the time, if I'm trying to come up with an idea, then I can't come up with an idea because that's how it goes. So I draw in my sketchbook every day. Sketchbooks are like where every idea that I have begins. And this is a very long winded way of coming up with ideas. But I will go back through sketchbooks. A lot of the time I'm transferring ideas from one sketchbook to the next, like chronologically, so I don't have to go back through like 10 years worth of sketchbooks. I kind of take some of the better ideas from the earlier sketchbooks, put them in the later sketchbooks. They might change a bit there, but yeah, so I will go through a couple of sketchbooks and just see what sparks. And there's usually something there. If that doesn't work, then I have to go out and go for a walk. I never want to, but it always helps. And then I'll come back to it. And then I'll also just doodle. I'll just draw in my sketchbook without any kind of clear aim. I'll try and forget about the fact that I'm trying to come up with a specific idea and just draw and see what happens. And eventually something happens. Sometimes it's because there's a deadline and something has to happen and I just have to choose my least bad idea. And usually when I do that, those are the ones that people like the most. So I clearly have no concept of what's good and what's not.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, that's good to remember. I think that's totally good to remember. And I love what you said about all this because I've heard other people talk about it this way. And it's my exact experience of really like looking for a back window to crawl into the idea space. You have to kind of fall into it. And the only way to do that is like making stuff. And it's very annoying. There's some annoying, like why your brain is like, I will not come up with ideas on command. I will not do that. You're gonna have to figure out how to like work it out of me. It's very annoying. But it's fun when it happens.

[Gemma Correll]

Yeah. Once it comes, once that idea is out of the brain, then yeah, it's great.

[Andy J. Pizza]

It's great. Yeah. You come from there after that.

[Gemma Correll]

But yeah, it's not fun coming up with ideas, really.

[Andy J. Pizza]

It's hard. Last part on that is. So you've done a lot of like visual journaling for a long time. Is there anything in terms of getting out authentic? Like this is something that is an. Another annoying thing about making work for me is sometimes it's hard for me to access my. Either from my people pleasing or masking or whatever. Sometimes it's hard for me to access what I really think and really be present. And I just Wondered if you. Do you feel like you've gotten better at that in the art journaling or is there any. Do you have any tips about how to be looser or how to approach it in a way that's just better for you?

[Gemma Correll]

Yeah, I think just making the art and trying to convince myself that nobody's gonna see it, I just.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[Gemma Correll]

Which is really hard. Yeah, it's the only thing that really works. Again, just kind of seeing everybody, even if I know that people are going to see it, just seeing them as kind of an abstract mass. I don't want to depersonalize anyone who looks at my art, but just. Yeah, it's really, really hard to make art now. And I do miss the days where I was just really making art for myself, but at the same time, I love that people are seeing it now. So.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Gemma Correll]

Yeah, it's very swings and rounds abouts it, actually.

[Andy J. Pizza]

The times when I've been able to write free write, where I'm like, I'm literally using this for nothing and no one will ever see this. There's something about that that sometimes comes. Something comes out where I do want to share it. Does it. It makes me think, like, I need to put in my. I need to start a sketchbook. And there are certain colors of sketchbooks, and in my will, it's like, burn those. As soon as I'm dead, my partner burns those. So no one ever publishes anything from that. Maybe that'll help get some of that stuff out.

[Gemma Correll]

Yeah, I think. I mean, my answer is sketchbooks, always.

[Andy J. Pizza]

Yeah.

[Gemma Correll]

So just like, just draw so much that it wouldn't even be possible for them to publish everything because it's like half of it doesn't make any sense. And it's just. Yeah, just draw and draw and draw

[Andy J. Pizza]

and write so much, no one will even be bothered. They're like, we can't possibly go through this.

[Gemma Correll]

Just make those pages so full and busy and hard to comprehend that it only makes sense to you until you decipher what's in it.

[Andy J. Pizza]

That's amazing. All right. That's a great place to end. Thank you so much for the book and thanks for the great conversation. I could talk to you for loads of time. I hope that you come back for a fourth time or third time, whatever it is, hopefully sooner. And where's the best place for people to go check out the book?

[Gemma Correll]

So the publisher is Simon and Schuster. It's the Gallery Books is the imprint. So you can go to the Gallery Books website and it will take you to a bunch of different links. You could pick your favorites and go

[Andy J. Pizza]

from there and we'll put a link to that page in the show. Notes. Thank you Gemma for for everything. I hope to see you again soon.

[Gemma Correll]

Thank you so much. Yeah, I hope to see you again soon.

[Andy J. Pizza]

I just want to add one thing to the creative call to Adventure Back Window. This is about how do you find that safe space in your head where you allow your real thoughts and voice down onto the page. And I just thought joking about this idea of putting in your will to burn certain sketchbooks. I thought what if you just make a page of art and writing mixture of both. Kind of like this book Anxiety Land is and you plan on burning it, that you're going to actually burn it after it's done so that it will cease to exist. What would you put on the page? This process. I haven't done that exact thing, but I'm going to. And this process of starting from a place of I'm not planning on sharing. This is the kind of safe space where your psyche will allow you to share some of your real thoughts. And often at the end you're like, I don't need to burn this. What? I don't know what the deal is sometimes maybe you do, but wanted to add that little bit. Huge thanks to Jim Correll for spending time doing this with me. It's always a blast to catch up with her and go check out the book Anxiety Land. Highly recommend this thing. Massive. Thanks for Sophie Miller for being an editor and producer on the show. Thanks to Connor Jones for audio edits, video edits, animation and sound design. Thanks to Jim McCrell for meeting me today and chatting. Thanks to Yoni Wolf of the band WY for our theme music and soundtrack. And until we speak again. Oh yeah. Thank you for listening. And then until we speak again, stay pepped up, y'. All. Have you ever asked yourself, can the president really do that? Or wondered if there was too much money in political campaigns? Then check out the new season of youf Might Be Right, hosted by us former Tennessee governors Phil Bredesen and Bill Haslam. We're back for a brand new season now, and you Might Be right cements the idea that constructive disagreement can lead to real problem solving. This season we're going to dig into the role of National Guard, AI regulation, and a lot more. New episodes drop every other week. Follow you Might Be Right. Wherever you get your podcasts, we all

[Mike Pesca]

need advice, but it's not always clear who to ask. Even in 2026. Enter how to the longstanding advice show an Ambie Award nominated Best Personal Growth podcast. That's back with new episodes and a new host. Who?

[Andy J. Pizza]

Me.

[Mike Pesca]

Mike Pesca. Each week I tackle a listener question ranging from travel to finance to relationships and beyond, with help from a world class expert. You know, someone who actually very much knows what they're talking about. Think of it as eavesdropping on someone else's therapy session without the copay or awkward silences. You've got questions, we'll find the experts and the answers. So follow how to with Mike Pesca wherever you get podcasts.