Creative Talks & Workshops | Dan Nelken
The Escape Artists

Community & Program

For creative people who want to create more for themselves.

The Escape Artists is a program and community for professional creatives who want to get more of their own ideas out of their heads, out of their Notes apps, and into the world.

Not just ideas for clients. Or other companies.
Your thinking.
Your expertise.
Your value.
Applied to something you are building.
Through the program, you’ll pick one idea or path.
And you’ll finish it.
Because that first finished thing changes everything.

Is this for you?

This is for creative people with ideas for books, films, products, businesses, side projects, personal projects, or weird little things they can’t stop thinking about.

Ideas that could change the trajectory of your life.

If you ever actually finished one. That’s exactly what happened for me and it’s happening for people in the community.

What you get

Inside The Escape Artists, you get the structure, support, and creative momentum to choose one idea and follow through on it.

You’ll get:
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A self-paced program to help you figure out what’s been stopping you

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Live sessions, workshops, and warm seats

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Accountability challenges to keep you moving

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Honest feedback from other professional creatives

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A community of people building their own things alongside you

It’s not a get-rich-quick thing.

It’s not a “build a 7-figure funnel in 8 minutes” thing.

It’s a place to do the work and fumble along with other people who are inching along just like you and me.

Ready to start making your ideas?

Only 50 new people are accepted each year, with new cohorts starting in the Fall. If this feels like the kind of creative support system you’ve been missing, start here.

Why I built this

Joy comes in the doing. Pain comes in the overthinking.

My entire career, and honestly my entire life, I’ve had ideas.

But as the years, ahem decades, flew by, most of them became sad little memories in my Notes app.

At some point, I knew I had to either commit to one or get back to schlepping my arse up the corporate ladder.

Finishing my book became my line in the sand.

I knew if I could finish one thing, it would break my dam of creative constipation.

And it did.

The book ended up being a hit, but that was never the finish line. It was always only ever the starting gate.

Since then, I’ve created online courses, given talks and workshops around the world, and built the thing I love most: this community.

That’s why The Escape Artists exists.

To help creative people choose one of their ideas, finish it, and find out what else might be inside them.

It’s the only judgment-free space where I feel comfortable sharing what I’m aspiring to create.
Laura Woythe
Freelance Content Creator + Doctor
It’s the only judgment-free space where I feel comfortable sharing what I’m aspiring to create.
Laura Woythe
Freelance Content Creator + Doctor
T.E.A. exorcised me of all my excuses to not create for myself.”
Liv Grigorou
Creative Lead
T.E.A. exorcised me of all my excuses to not create for myself.”
Liv Grigorou
Creative Lead
Escape Artists helped me take stupid little ideas seriously enough to actually commit to them.
Steppo Schwade
Creative Director
Escape Artists helped me take stupid little ideas seriously enough to actually commit to them.
Steppo Schwade
Creative Director
We’ve moved from quiet cheerleading to actual thought partners.
Josh Kilen
Owner, Cascade Digital Marketing
We’ve moved from quiet cheerleading to actual thought partners.
Josh Kilen
Owner, Cascade Digital Marketing
For years, I was thinking, thinking, thinking about what I should do. Now I’m ACTUALLY doing...
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Jordana Gagnon
Owner Grub Street Marketing
For years, I was thinking, thinking, thinking about what I should do. Now I’m ACTUALLY doing the thing I want to do.
Jordana Gagnon
Owner Grub Street Marketing
I’m making steady, consistent progress on a project I’d been toying with for years but never started.
Erin Lancione
Copywriter + Creative Strategist
I’m making steady, consistent progress on a project I’d been toying with for years but never started.
Erin Lancione
Copywriter + Creative Strategist

The Newsletter

I write stuff to help people (myself included) build creative confidence.