Art Above Everything:
One Woman’s Global Exploration of the Joys and Torments of a Creative Life

Beacon Press, June 2025

Purchase: Penguin Random House | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop.org | Amazon

All artists struggle. But women are especially pushed to give up their creative ambitions, from societal disapproval against “selfishness” to the pressure (or desire) for children and economic stability. Throughout her 20s and 30s, Stephanie Elizondo Griest wondered if constantly prioritizing her writing over everything else was leading her to fulfillment or regret. After a brutal break-up and narrowly surviving a health crisis in her early 40s, she turned to other women for their perspectives on that haunting question: is art enough? Art Above Everything documents her travels to 10 nations—from Cuba to Iceland; Rwanda to Qatar—where she meets with legendary painters, poets, actors, dancers, and musicians who talk intimately about their art, both what it gifts them and what it costs them. Collectively, these artists speak dozens of languages and worship a spectrum of faiths, but their compulsions to create despite financial hardship, misogyny, sexual violence, and family ostracization are wholly akin. Bold and inspiring, Art Above Everything illuminates the ways we can wield creativity as a vitalizing force.

Beacon Press, June 2025

Purchase: Penguin Random House | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop.org | Amazon

All artists struggle. But women are especially pushed to give up their creative ambitions, from societal disapproval against “selfishness” to the pressure (or desire) for children and economic stability. Throughout her 20s and 30s, Stephanie Elizondo Griest wondered if constantly prioritizing her writing over everything else was leading her to fulfillment or regret. After a brutal break-up and narrowly surviving a health crisis in her early 40s, she turned to other women for their perspectives on that haunting question: is art enough? Art Above Everything documents her travels to 10 nations—from Cuba to Iceland; Rwanda to Qatar—where she meets with legendary painters, poets, actors, dancers, and musicians who talk intimately about their art, both what it gifts them and what it costs them. Collectively, these artists speak dozens of languages and worship a spectrum of faiths, but their compulsions to create despite financial hardship, misogyny, sexual violence, and family ostracization are wholly akin. Bold and inspiring, Art Above Everything illuminates the ways we can wield creativity as a vitalizing force.

FEATURED ARTISTS

  • Musician Māmā Mihirangi, Aotearoa/New Zealand
  • Belly dancers Tiffany “Hanan” Madera and Gretel Sanchez Llabre, Cuba
  • Author Vilborg Davíðsdóttir, Iceland
  • Odissi dancer Surupa Sen, India
  • Author Sandra Cisneros, Mexico
  • Visual artists Fatma Al Shebani and Hana Al Saadi, Qatar
  • Visual artists Florica Prevenda and Marilena Preda Sânc, Romania
  • Playwright Hope Azeda and actors Malaika Uwamahoro and Gakire Katese Odile, Rwanda
  • Performance artists Sheryl Oring and Ayana Evans, USA
  • Ballerina Wendy Whelan, USA

ADVANCE PRAISE

Stephanie Elizondo Griest has travelled the world to give us Art Above Everything, and what a gorgeous gift it is, both a how-to for making art and a soul-steeling affirmation of this most essential human endeavor. In chapter after chapter, portrait after portrait, we encounter women whose stories and achievements testify to the miracle-producing power of grit, discipline, devotion, and sheer endurance, all told by an indomitable writer who has herself persevered through more than her share of challenges. This dazzling, inspiring book continues to lift me up, and I expect it will do the same for you.
— Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, winner of National Book Critics’ Circle Award

“Griest’s rigorous and fascinating research both proves and enacts her book’s thesis: a life devoted to art is not only possible but a ringing answer to the powers that attempt to thwart such lives and work. A deep, moving, radical book that I want to press into the hands of every young artist.”
— Melissa Febos, author of The Dry Season and Girlhood, winner of the National Book Critic’s Circle Award in Criticism

“Sensitive and gorgeously curious, Art Above Everything is a quest, a cascade of questions, and especially a celebration: of art, of lives dedicated to art, and of the difficult choices such dedication requires. This is required reading for anyone who is compelled to create.”
— Kirsten Valdez Quade, author of The Five Wounds

This book is a must read for every woman artist! It will affirm the decisions you have made, inspire you to get back to the page or the canvas or the studio, and clarify that you belong to a glorious and global lineage of creatives. In chapter after chapter, you will, as I did, travel around the world with Stephanie Elizondo Griest as she interviews ”art monks”— women who have dedicated their entire lives to an art form. Her lucid and lyrical reportage, coupled with memoir, left me riveted and articulated for me the many ways that we navigate the ecstasies of making art and the practicalities of paying the rent. This is a book to devour and to give to your best friend!
— Daisy Hernández, coeditor of Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism

REVIEWS

Readers may wish they’d had this guide at the start of their own journeys, but it’s never too late to be reminded that yes, the road is impossible, and no, you’re not on it alone. A new kind of travel writing.
— Booklist