KUOW Shorts

What happens when your side hustle, your passion, becomes a full time gig? A sudden layoff in 2020 led Seattle drag queen Jane Don't to put her performance career into overdrive. She invested time into make dresses and wigs and jokes and routines. And after a year of being holed up at home, Jane Don't wanted to show off her hard work. Jane Don't was booked and busy all summer 2021.Senior producer Brandi Fullwood spoke with Jane Don't about pivoting to drag full time and living with fewer regrets.

Washington state is known for its variety of flora and fauna. But when it comes to public adoration, it seems like one local animal has been a little jilted - the Olympic marmot. It's ironic, considering the fuzzy rodent was officially declared a state symbol in 2009. But what makes the marmot so worthy of a government distinction?Soundside producer Noel Gasca introduces us to a scientist and a citizen activist who tell us why, and what the process of getting state recognition for the Olympic marmot looked like.

When Eve Palay first moved to Bainbridge, she was a stay-at-home parent — married with two young daughters. And for the most part, her family kept to themselves. But things changed. "The kids grew up, marriage ended. And I came out as trans," Palay said. "And as I came out, I really wanted to make sure that other people who needed to come out had an easier time and knew that there are people here."Eve Palay speaks with Soundside's Supervising Producer Sarah Leibovitz about how she worked to create the community she needed when she first came out.Eve is the cofounder of Rainbow Crew Northwest. You can find out more about that organization at www.rainbowcrewnw.org

Burnout can manifest differently across job sectors. Long hours and an intertwined work and home life balance makes things tricky. Since the onset of the pandemic, many clergy members have been wrestling with how to do and be everything their community needs. Some have even considered quitting ministry altogether because it's too much to handle. "I really felt like I was at my rope's end in terms of ministry,” Pastor Peter Chin said. Chin is the lead pastor of Rainier Avenue Church, located in the Rainier Valley of Seattle.Senior producer Brandi Fullwood spoke with Pastor Chin about his scheduled sabbatical. It was clear he really needed it. But not everyone understood that.

Without a boat or special gear, a lot of Puget Sounds' iconic creatures - from orcas to Dungeness crabs - remain out of our everyday reach. But there is one little guy you can find most any day on your neighborhood dock: sea slugs, also known by their scientific name, nudibranchs.We go looking for sea slugs with Soundside producer Alec Cowan, Luan Roberts and Karin Fletcher.

UW Professor and author Taso Lagos first immigrated to Seattle with his family from Greece when he was just nine years old. For 40 years, this family constellated around the Continental Restaurant on University Way NE, near the University of Washington. Several years ago, Taso's parents closed The Continental and retired.Taso and Libby Denkmann walk the Ave and talk about his memories of the U-District, and how the neighborhood and his parents' old storefront has changed.

Our final episode is a two-parter. First, a story from RadioActive about a ghost that lives in the river surrounding a small village in north India. Then, KUOW's Katy Sewall talks with 3-year-old and then 13-year-old Chloe and her dad, who love horror movies and watch them together.

A 19-year old takes her travel industry job seriously, and doesn't party with the rest of her team when they go on vacation research trips. But an early bedtime leads to an unusual visitation in the 19-year old's Alaskan cruise ship cabin… particularly since she doesn't believe in ghosts.

Once upon a time, there was a group of local ghost hunters called AGHOST - Amateur Ghost Hunters of Seattle-Tacoma. Radio producer Jake Warga went along with the group one creepy night. Terrifying hijinks ensue. 

A delivery of old clothing shows up at a dinner theater in Virginia, including an old wedding dress. The costume designer makes the dress a centerpiece of the play they're doing, but the original owner of the dress doesn't like that.

When Wolfe Maykut was an undergrad at the University of Washington, he lived in a run-down rental house near campus. One day, he discovered the house had a secret: a room that was largely inaccessible. Wolfe's initial curiosity about the room quickly becomes a dangerous obsession - one that the house is prepared to thwart at every turn. This story is part of a special KUOW Shorts series called K-Boo-O-W Shorts, a collection of creepy stories just in time for Halloween.

Tomo Nakayama usually puts his creative energy into his harmonious music. But when the pandemic hit, he found a new outlet: cooking.Cooking his way through various Japanese comfort dishes was a way to be creative in an upended routine. And it helped him address the homesickness and longing for family that he was feeling. Miso, a foundational element of Japanese flavor, taught him a lesson about harmony he now applies outside the kitchen. Listen to the episode to discover the connection between a tub of miso and songwriting. Do you have a special object that you hold close? Share it with us on Instagram. Tag @KUOW and use the hashtag: #bluesuitpod.Your feedback matters to us. Submit your comments and questions to www.kuow.org/feedback  Related links:Tomo NakayamaA place to start with Japanese recipesMidnight Diner

Jessica Rubenacker collects plants. Lots of plants. In this episode, we learn about how Jessica's passion for plant collecting developed. Currently, there are more than 365 specimens in her collection; her plant babies even have their own Instagram account. The night-blooming cereus, aka tan hua, which is also known by its more poetic moniker - the queen of the night - entered Jessica's life as a gift. The nocturnal cactus smells like gardenia and only blooms for a single night before fading.  A tale of rooting and uprooting, Jessica also speaks about her Filipina immigrant grandmother and visiting the motherland to seek out the family's ancestral roots. Do you have a special object that you hold close? Share it with us on Instagram. Tag @KUOW and use the hashtag: #bluesuitpod.Your feedback matters to us. Submit your comments and questions to www.kuow.org/feedback  Related links:The Blue SuitJessica's plants on InstagramVideo of the Night-blooming Cereus

 A chador garment worn by some Muslim women is usually black. Not Anida Yoeu Ali's. Her chador is red and sparkly. As a performance artist, Anida created the glittery chador to embody her Muslim identity and confront Islamophobia. The red chador invited reactions of curiosity, spectacle, fear, respect, anger and gratitude from strangers on the streets of Paris, Seattle, DC and Palestine. In this episode we explore Anida's identity inside and outside the red chador, the public's response, and what she did after this garment mysteriously disappeared during her travels in Tel Aviv.Do you have a special object that you hold close? Share it with us on Instagram. Tag @KUOW and use the hashtag: #bluesuitpod.Your feedback matters to us. Submit your comments and questions to www.kuow.org/feedback  Related links:The Blue Suit Anida's websiteVideo of the red chador in Seattle after the 2016 presidential electionA eulogy for the red chadorA performance of the rainbow of chadors

The Blue Suit is about the commonplace things that touch our lives and the uncommon people that transform them into something remarkable. By exploring our emotional kinship with everyday objects, we shine a light on our cultural and personal values in these times. We'll reflect together on what we own, what we inherit, and what we cherish. Along the way, we'll redefine what gets elevated to heirloom status.Do you have a special object that you hold close? Share it with us on Instagram. Tag @KUOW and use the hashtag: #bluesuitpod.Your feedback matters to us. Submit your comments and questions to www.kuow.org/feedback

For our final episode, Subtext listeners reckon with the costs of staying silent versus speaking up, and one listener shares a tactic for having tough conversations in a meaningful way. And Bill has a realization about the concept behind the series: it was missing something important from the beginning.Steph Ikeda's essay in the International Examiner. "We didn't talk about it": Moving beyond a culture of silenceGet tickets to our live Subtext event on July 7 here.We want to hear your Subtext stories and episode pitches! Contact host Bill Radke at bradke@kuow.org or text 206-926-9955. Your feedback matters to us. Submit your comments and questions to www.kuow.org/feedback 

This episode is about different kinds of silences.  Many traumatized veterans don't know how to talk about their experiences, especially with people who haven't been at war. My guest, Seattle novelist Shawn Wong, helps veterans turn their experiences into stories. When it's your story, you get to control what it means. For example, he tells the story of a soldier who was too wounded to be at his dying father's bedside. That fact had held the soldier captive; but in writing about it, facts become healing truths. Meanwhile, Wong struggles to understand the silences in his own life, including the early death of both his parents and his wife.  We want to hear your Subtext stories and episode pitches! Contact host Bill Radke at bradke@kuow.org or text 206-926-9955. Your feedback matters to us. Submit your comments and questions to www.kuow.org/feedback 

Gillian Tett was watching TV with fellow journalists when everyone, including her, started laughing. Her trained anthropologist side came out, and she realized that this merry laughter was hiding a culture of elitism that elites don't like to discuss. Ashley Cowan D'Ambrosio was an honors student and athlete who could no longer get out of bed. Since mental illness was not discussed openly, she tried to overcome it privately. But that would do nothing to change the systems we tolerate despite how many people they leave out. We want to hear your Subtext stories and episode pitches! Contact host Bill Radke at bradke@kuow.org or text 206-926-9955. 

How do you love your body when it – and society – doesn't seem to love you back?Olaiya Land is a certified pleasure and empowerment coach in Seattle. She's 47, bi-racial, and she knows that “Body Positivity” is not available to everyone, especially women, people of color, people who are older, have disabilities, have very large bodies – “basically anybody who is two or three steps outside of societal norms.” Hanna Safley is a 21-year-old University of Washington student. A disfiguring cancer treatment made it hard to be positive about her body. But she's found a different way of looking at it: “body neutrality.” We want to hear your Subtext stories and episode pitches! Contact host Bill Radke at bradke@kuow.org or text 206-926-9955.  

COVID shutdowns threatened to kill Mike Gengler's wristband business until he realized that his product comes in handy in a pandemic. In this episode, KUOW employees experiment with letting their color-coded wristbands say it all -- so they don't have to. Plus: Should you ask who got COVID and who didn't?We want to hear your Subtext stories and episode pitches! Contact host Bill Radke at bradke@kuow.org or text 206-926-9955. 

So many Americans say they feel afraid to talk openly now, but they don't like staying silent either. Seattle journalist Monica Guzmán has written a book called "I Never Thought Of It That Way: How To Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations In Dangerously Divided Times." She says in order to persuade and ultimately better understand neighbors and relatives on the other side of the divide, we have to ask how they came to their conclusions.We want to hear your Subtext stories and episode pitches! Contact host Bill Radke at bradke@kuow.org or text 206-926-9955. 

Welcome to KUOW Shorts, a new podcast feed of short-run audio series produced by KUOW. Our first series is called “Subtext: What Goes Unsaid.” Join host Bill Radke for conversations about the things we usually don't say out loud. Bill will chat with guests navigating difficult discussions, ideas and divides … and offer solutions for how we might all communicate better with each other and ourselves. Episodes start Monday, May 23.