A New Way Out? Smack Dab in the Imagination by Dia Calhoun

When my character was caught in a trap—a bad situation—I brainstormed what she might do to escape her captors. With her trickster, quixotic nature, she could certainly try to outwit them. Then I thought, wait, no—why not out-imagine them?

Wit is defined as an intelligence, often related to word usage. But do we usually consider imaginative abilities as part of a keen intelligence? Do we think of imaginative skills as their own kind of intelligence? We have the idea of emotional intelligence, so why not imaginative intelligence? Or let’s flip it—intelligent imagination, which all artists know is essential for crafting a sustained work of art.

With all the political, social, and environmental traps we are stuck inside of now, we need all the imaginative intelligence we can muster to get out of them.