Episode 018 – Samantha Willman | MAKE // BREAK

Samantha Willman is a Canadian writer, designer, and editor based in Montréal. She co-founded and co-edits Romanticon, a Substack literary magazine dedicated to neo-romanticism and new sincerity, alongside Anthony Galluzzo, Paul Franz, and Matthew Gasda. She also publishes Marbl, a personal newsletter exploring intimacy, symbolism, and the interior life. Her 2016 book Behind The First One was published through the Canadian Academy in Rome. In this episode of MAKE // BREAK, Samantha unpacks why irony culture has hollowed out creative life, how she built a thriving 60-person poetry reading series from nothing, and why approaching truth with love (not optimization) is the real survival strategy for artists.

Looking for this kind of insight and care for your own work? THE V1LLAG3 is the room where you show the work. ↓ link at the bottom.

👀 What you'll hear

• Why writing poetry in Rome unlocked a felt sense of truth she couldn't access through logic alone
• How the new sincerity movement pushes back against layers of ironic artifice in online culture
• Building a 60-person poetry reading community from scratch with zero formal plan
• The case for keeping a day job so you can approach your art from love instead of desperation
• How Rilke wrote two masterworks in weeks and what that says about creative production vs. productivity
• Why philosophia means love of truth — and why that changes everything about how artists create

🕰️ Chapters

00:00 Introduction and how Lance discovered Samantha

03:00 Why poetry is hard to recommend and harder to consume

05:16 Writing poetry in Rome and the birth of creative instinct

08:59 Charles Taylor, intrinsic rightness, and felt truth

10:33 Favourite poets: Plath, Octavio Paz, Wallace Stevens

14:17 Neo-romanticism and new sincerity explained

19:17 Irony culture, meme politics, and the Vice magazine pipeline

22:41 Argumentation vs. dialogue — methods of thinking

30:00 Building Romanticon's live reading community

37:34 Why the Enlightenment was top-down and Romanticism is not

42:22 The starving artist myth and creating from a place of health

45:16 Rilke, the Sonnets to Orpheus, and creative production in bursts

🔗 Guest Links

https://romanticon.substack.com

https://marbl.substack.com

https://instagram.com/sam.willman

https://x.com/samanthawillman

🔗 MAKE // BREAK & Host Links

https://open.spotify.com/show/5GDOUd909p7ir2W74M9teg?si=cbc7e01e13ba4a20

https://instagram.com/lowkeyhellish

https://tiktok.com/@lowkeyhellish

🏘️ THE V1LLAG3 // the paid community from your hostThe room I built because I couldn’t find it; the first honest take your work has been waiting for. Wed Live 90min with Lance & Chris. 7 frameworks V13 uses with $1,500–$3,000/mo retainer clients. Bio, EPK, profile & website teardowns.Founding 50: $49/mo locked for life · 38 spots left. $79 Standard after. Full refund if your 4th Wednesday hasn't earned it.→ https://www.skool.com/v13-7161

🔗 V13 Media Links

https://v13.net

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[Contains occasional explicit language.]

#MakeBreak #SamanthaWillman #NewSincerity