Something (rather than nothing)

This episode was recorded and captured LIVE on Independent Bookstore Day (April 26, 2025) from Browsers' Bookstore in Albany, Oregon. Pete Dryden:Photographer, cabinet maker, professional overthinker. Hiding out in Albany, Oregon—dodging small talk, chasing meaning in the grain and the frame. Restless mind, calloused hands, too many questions and never enough quiet.Abe Richmond:Owner of Browsers' Bookstore. If spotted in the wild, he is reading totally tubular titles.We talk about bookstores, Edward Abbey, Kathy Acker, Morrissey, Hunter S. Thompson and so much more.Celebrate Independent Books & Bookstores!!!

About Craig Randall - I've loved stories and literature and writing for as long as I can remember. For just as long, I've also struggled with anxiety and depression. They have loomed over me, all my life, threatening to steal away whatever hope and joy i've worked so hard to build.All my work, the fiction and the poetry, was born out of this struggle as I worked to overcome and deal the hardships these struggles brought on.There's so much to the story, which I will write about later. In the mean time, just know you're not alone. You are brilliant and strong and are not a product of whatever's held you back. You got this! We got this!Oh, one of my main hopes is let men know it's okay to feel, it's okay to express, it's okay that we're not always sure how, but real strength is found in taking that step forward and bearing ourselves to those we love.We can all feel whole!

Shippentower is named Co-Captain of the Oregon Ravens Football Team!Kola Shippentower is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. She has co-founded and is the Director of The Wisáwca Project - Enough Iz Enough, a non-profit organization working together for change, for better communication and involvement.Kola has developed a Safety Plan to be utilized by anyone in identifying safety methods, contacts, and procedures to keep one safe whether in an abusive relationship or a plan to track a missing person. She is a professional fighter and brown belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Welcome back to the show Kola!!!And we talk women's football and MMIW . . .Oregon RavensSRTN Website

Meghan Lamb is the author of Mirror Translation (Blamage Books, 2025), COWARD (Spuyten Duyvil, 2022), Failure to Thrive (Apocalypse Party, 2021) All of Your Most Private Places (Spork Press, 2020) and Silk Flowers (Birds of Lace, 2017). Her work has also appeared in Quarterly West, DIAGRAM, Redivider, and Passages North, among other publications. She currently teaches creative writing through the University of Chicago, Story Studio, Hugo House, and GrubStreet. She is the fiction editor for Bridge Books and the nonfiction editor for Lover's Eye and Nat. Brut.Music here

Raechel Wolfe is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Portland, OR, whose work spans film, writing, modeling, and Creative Direction. She made waves by creating FINK, the world's first Instagram-exclusive short film, and was a founding member of the core team behind Buckman Journal. Raechel continues to push creative boundaries, now adding curator to her dynamic portfolio.Featuring co-host and model/artist Jenny Peterson.For Your Eyes Only

elle nash is an electrifying writer based in glasgow, scotlandthis is about her book 'deliver me' - At a meatpacking facility in the Missouri Ozarks, Dee-Dee and her co-workers kill and butcher 40,000 chickens in a single shift.The work is repetitive and brutal, with each stab and cut a punishment to her hands and joints, but Dee-Dee's more concerned with what is happening inside her body. After a series of devastating miscarriages, Dee-Dee has found herself pregnant, and she is determined to carry this child to term.Dee-Dee fled the Pentecostal church years ago, but judgment follows her in the form of regular calls from her mother, whose raspy voice urges Dee-Dee to quit living in sin and marry her boyfriend Daddy, an underemployed ex-con with an insect fetish. With a child on the way, at long last Dee-Dee can bask in her mother's and boyfriend's newfound parturient attention. She will matter. She will be loved. She will be complete.When her charismatic friend Sloane reappears after a twenty-year absence, feeding her insecurities and awakening suppressed desires, Dee-Dee fears she will go back to living in the shadows. Neither the ultimate indignity of yet another miscarriage nor Sloane's own pregnancy deters her: she must prepare for the baby's arrival.Something Rather Than Nothing Podcast

Vanessa Stockard recently visited the podcast for the 3rd time!Vanessa Stockard was born in 1975 in Sydney and spent her formative years in a small country town in the Mid North Coast of New South Wales. At 12 she returned to Sydney as a boarder at Abbotsleigh. After graduating from the College of Fine Arts (COFA) Sydney in 1998 with a BFA, Stockard launched head first into the avant-garde art scene in the bohemian village of Glebe.Stockard is one of the most dangerous artists on the Australian, and by extension, international scene. Her ethereal works of art are a window into the soul of a talented and complex artist, one whose legacy is bound to resonate well past her generation. The existential nature of her painting viscerally questions our concepts of social relationships and reality.Twenty years of introspection and experimentation, ranging over a number of media, have forged Vanessa's style and vulcanised her craft, enabling her to reveal complex misdemeanours, while simultaneously demanding the viewer's self-reflection. She deals with isolation and sadness with intimate care and attention.Vanessa is unhindered by failure, always continuing the discovery of things previously unseen, revealing work that is fresh, unlaboured and penetrating. The deceptive everyday nature of her subject matter belies hidden depths of relationship, feeling and emotion. One could describe her process as absence of thought, a freedom of construct, not unlike the stream of consciousness associated with authors such as Hemmingway and Thomas Wolfe.If light and shade were students, she would be their master. This skill, combined with a naturally deft hand and a determined use of perspective, imbue her subjects with gravitas. The artist refers to set design elements that often alter and morph as her piece progresses. She has said she feels grounded from her ability to draw from the benign surrounds of familiar life, infusing these images with a meaning that yields a meditative satisfaction.Stockard's oeuvre features many pieces developed without any direct visual reference but rather from memory, often incorporating domestic pets such as cats and dogs. Juxtaposing the anthropomorphic nature these animals are given by our society, she infuses the personification of virtue and vice into the everyday canine and feline status quo of our pets. Cats with their fluffy comical exteriors glint with an instinctive urge to kill and cruelly torment their prey, dogs with their providence of happiness, loyalty and friendship are flung back onto Churchill's menacing metaphor for depression.The Kafkaesque mindset behind such works is reminiscent of the existentialist authors like Sartre and Camus. Absurdism appears with cake imagery and its relation to a childlike nostalgia for happiness which may never be real, but rather imaginary, unattainable and unachievable. It's been said “pain is inexhaustible, it's only people who get exhausted…”One can never “have it all”, to be both the artist and patron. To intrinsically understand those things around us that others overlook is what we want from our artists, our creatives. They give voice to the profound mystery of the world around us, surrounded as we are with consumerism, pointless greed, deceit and dissatisfaction. There's no pretension here in these paintings, just spontaneous insight and beauty. Some art is said to speak volumes, but these works are more like innocent and delicate poems, whispering untold truths with an economy of words.Something Rather Than Nothing Podcast

Aaron Keuter is an editor, motion designer, animator, and visual effects artist in Portland, Oregon.SRTN is a worldwide podcast that features the greatest creators you can find.

Rachael Tyrell aims to create art that reimagines classic pinup aesthetics through a contemporary lens. Working primarily with Sharpies and various inks, she crafts pieces that radiate raw energy.Her sculptural work transforms everyday objects into surreal expressions, challenging expectations.Drawing from her background as a model, Rachael's art explores the fluid boundary between being seen and seeing. She wields ink with intention as each permanent line shapes her distinctive visual language.Her autobiographical zines blend intimate narrative with striking imagery and have traveled with her to zine fests in Los Angeles, Detroit, and Portland. They hint at stories untold and adventures yet to come. Beyond her art, Rachael steps behind the decks as a DJ and hopes to be a quiet catalyst for others' creativity. Her artistic universe embraces contradiction and invites viewers into a world where art becomes a shared secret.Rachael's websiteSRTN Podcast Website

Lady Ro is a Baltimore based indie folk rock musician. Formally know as Baby Carrots, Lady Ro began playing shows in Baltimore in 2019, where she quickly garnering a solid following. Her performances are a dynamic blend of heartfelt song writing, humor, a stirring powerful voice, and a wicked sense of style.We had a lovely chat about the great city of Baltimore, DIY aesthetic, thanos & eros, creativity, melancholy, style, the city, photography, vinyl and Rock & Roll.

Stop in and enjoy this lovely chat with dancer Tina!We chatted a bit of horror, a bit of art, a bit of dancing, standup comedy and constantly challenging yourself. There was even a special guest visit by Ripley The Cat.Thanks for visiting from Germany, Tina.!Tina's Instagram

Enjoy a lovely and vulnerable chat with Kels & Tess. Host Kenny and Co-host Jenny explore health, excitement, sex, p*rn and the powerful things that move us. Kels is a producer, businesswoman, and sex and relationship enthusiast. She never underestimates the power of a good story or a good spreadsheet.In tandem with a career in project management and marketing, she has been writing, directing, producing and performing for film and theater since 2013.​Kels believes the core of a good business, production, or sexual experience is the same: being attuned to other people and aware of their sweet spots. She's committed to restoring education to its natural state — enticing.Tess uses her experience as a researcher to establish a data-driven foundation for Squirm. She holds a master's degree from the University of Amsterdam where she researched the intersection of sex education and pornography.Tess has organized events featuring sex educators, filmmakers, and academics with the goals of celebrating erotic culture and destigmatizing talking about sex. She is a feminist erotic film enthusiast and is always looking ahead to the next indie film festival.Get SquirmyP*rn Nerds Podcast

Something (rather than nothing) Podcast presents a special STRIKE episode from Albany, Oregon.SRTN gives you an up to the moment report on the brave educators of The Greater Albany Education Association (GAEA) who have been on strike for five (5) days as of this episode's release.GAEA is fighting for student safety, lower class size and a wage that recruits and retains high quality educators.The Mariana LinkClick here to support GAEA:WebsiteInstagram Facebook

Besa is a film photographer and model who resides in Chicago. Her work is largely editorial, drawing inspiration from old Hollywood film noir and the creative direction of Sofia Coppola.BesaSRTN

Elisabeth Eaves is the author of the debut novel The Outlier as well as two critically acclaimed non-fiction books, Wanderlust: A love affair with five continents and Bare: the naked truth about stripping. Her work has been anthologized in four books of essays, and she's won three Lowell Thomas awards from the Society of American Travel Writers. Her journalism has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, Foreign Policy, Marie Claire, Slate, and many other publications, and she was a staff writer and editor at Forbes and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.Before turning full time to writing, Elisabeth worked as a waitress, a bartender, a deck hand, a landscaper, an office temp, and a peep show girl. She earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Washington and a master's degree from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.Born and raised in Vancouver, Elisabeth lived in Cairo, London, and Paris, spent 10 years in New York City, and now resides in Seattle.SRTN Website

Shelia Knox awakes from a two week coma to find her life torn apart.Her children have been savagely murdered. Her husband is missing. Her hand completely mangled and her throat slit to within inches of her jugular…Leaving her with nothing left to live for.So, when the men responsible for taking her and her family, come after her to try and finish the job, they unwittingly let loose an Angel of Death, hell-bent on hunting down those responsible and making them all pay.From the creative team of Keenan Marshall Keller (writer/co-creator of The HUMANS from IMAGE Comics) and Alex Delaney (creator of The Derelict and The Other Side of Town) comes VENGEANCE Is For The LIVING; A 4 issue mini-series overflowing with gritty exploitation action about the power of anger/loss and the clearness of vision that VENGEANCE can provide.SRTN Website

Samn Johnson (he/they, b. 1991) is a composer, producer, multi-instrumentalist, and historical linguist. Their work often harnesses research on acoustics and historical phonology to set texts in ancient languages like Latin, Old English, Hittite, and Gothic. Samn has written for a range of performers including Chromic Duo, Righteous GIRLS, JACK Quartet, and harpsichordist Nathan Mondry. His latest work is the song cycle Consolation, setting Latin poetry from Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy for vocalist Tis Kaoru Zamler-Carhart. It is out on innova Recordings, June 28, 2024. The two preceding recordings, both self-released, are Ageless Sea (2022), for chamber choir, chamber orchestra, electronics, and rock band, and First Book for Piano (2022), performing his own piano works.Samn is also half of the synth pop duo Acraea, together with Leora Mandel. Samn holds degrees in composition from the University of Michigan and NYU, studied composition at the Interlochen Arts Academy, and has taken courses in Indo-European historical linguistics at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. He lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan.SRTN website

Frederick Livingston lives in the liminal space between experiential education, sustainable agriculture, and peacebuilding. His work has appeared in numerous literary and scientific journals, public parks, and bathroom stalls.SRTN podcast

Multi Media Artist Shannon Kringen grew up in San Diego California and Whidbey Island Washington. She is a self taught photographer with a background in Graphic Design. She has worked as a figure model in Seattle since 1992. She completed her BA degree in Arts and Literature from Antioch University in 2013. She sees her creative expression as a tool to connect with community and a way of increasing self awareness and tap into a deeper wisdom within.We talked about HundertwasserMusic! SRTN Website

Aranea Push is a digital illustrator and comic artist living in the PNW. Aranea blends rich illustration with sharp attitude, creating a style she lovingly refers to as ‘Effin' Adorable'. In 2023, she published her first graphic novel “Coffee & Wine” which you can read in its entirety here!SRTN WebsiteBrowser's BookstorePopular Culture and Philosophy Series

It was a pleasure to talk to Olivia Dolphin about her deep literary and musical talents back in Episode 116 Providence, Rhode Island's Olivia Dolphin brings a deep and gritty honesty to her lyrics that captures an audience. Whether it's a song about embracing your imperfections, being ghosted, or challenging yourself, Dolphin's vulnerability pulls you in.Enjoy the single "Quiet Girls" and this talk about life, magick, art, literature and the things we live for . . . Olivia siteSRTN Site

Sara McGrath is an illustrator and author of "Garage Girls" and lives in Los Angeles.About "Garage Girls" - - - Sara & Chloe are best friends, roommates, & co-hosts of garage girls, a weekly talk show that airs at an inconvenient time on Los Angeles' public access channel, a station no one watches. And yet, they become wildly famous and popular. Can you even Believe?Sara's website SRTN Website

Ilya Popenko is a multi-disciplinary artist who was born in the Soviet Union and immigrated to the US at the age of 16. He is an award-winning filmmaker and photographer as well as a songwriter and a performer. In 2011, he formed a band called Mad Meg who play in an eclectic style they themselves haphazardly identify as “Punk-Chanson-Noir”. Based out of New York, Mad Meg has toured extensively in Russia and the former Soviet Bloc, including tours that covered close to 30 cities throughout the vast, frozen expanse of Eastern Europe, and in the course of which they shared the stage with such luminaries as Nogu Svelo!, Rasputina, and Emir Kusturica and recorded a live album in a female prison in Lithuania. While Mad Meg is on hiatus, Ilya works on his solo songs, one of which he's proud to present today.SRTN Website

Spencer Fleury is the author of I Blame Myself But Also You and other stories (Malarkey Books, 2024) and How I'm Spending My Afterlife (Woodhall Press, 2021). He lives in San Francisco.Spencer Fleury Website SRTN Website

Lauren graces the show again to talk more about her exciting solo play "Lolo's Boyfriend Show." It was such a thrill to talk to Lauren about art, the development of Lolo, taking risks on the stage and the hopes and dreams we all need : - )We also talk about so many costume changes, fashion and design!Bunch of John Leguizamo love at the end.Here's a little pshow review here from Broadway WorldThis is Lauren on the SRTN Fringe Episode This is SRTN

Ross McMeekin the author of The Hummingbirds (Skyhorse, 2018.) His short fiction has appeared in literary journals and magazines such as Virginia Quarterly Review, Shenandoah, Redivider, and X-R-A-Y. He has won fellowships from Hugo House and Jack Straw Cultural Center in Seattle. For the last ten years, he has served as editor of the literary journal, Spartan. McMeekin's Below the Falls is a collection filled with passion, tenderness, love, and peril.Two climbers in the North Cascades risk their friendship and lives ascending a frozen waterfall. The girlfriend of a famous comedian in Greenwich Village must decide whether she wants to raise a child in the spotlight of fame. A mysterious Bird of Paradise makes daily overtures to an elderly widow in the frigid Midwest. A Texas fracking mogul struggles to find the love his money prevents. The deeply rendered American landscapes of these stories emerge as a vital background for characters faced with conflicts that cannot be easily resolved, illuminating interior worlds filled with contradiction.You can find him at www.rossmcmeekin.comSRTN Website

Matthew Kyle Levine is a filmmaker and cinematographer based in New York City. His short films have won awards and played at numerous film festivals throughout North America, including the Williamsburg Independent Film Festival and the Canada Shorts Film Festival, most notably for his short film “Miss Freelance”.Watch 'Caleb and Sarah" and other short films on Mathew Kyle Levine's Vimeo:MKL VimeoSRTN Website

Paul Luikart is the author of the short story collections Animal Heart (Hyperborea Publishing, 2016), Brief Instructions (Ghostbird Press, 2017), Metropolia (Ghostbird Press, 2021), The Museum of Heartache (Pski's Porch Publishing, 2021), the 11th installment of Belle Point Press' Prose Series, and The Realm of the Dog (J. New Books, 2024.) He serves as an adjunct professor of fiction writing at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia. He and his family live in Chattanooga, Tennessee.Paul's Website

The Ill-Fitting Skin is layered with surreal storytelling but remains an extraordinarily realistic read, in the sense that even the most solid realities of life—and death—tend to blur and shimmer at their raw edges. The talkative bird that nests in a woman's womb is as real as the “previous tenant.” The love of a mother for her uncontrollable son is as real as the wildness that is in her too. The women of The Ill-Fitting Skin are real women—who work and grieve and create and destroy, who love and do not love, whether at the roll of the dice or because “the pages are paths, and you will have to choose among them.”Shannon Robinson's debut short story collection, The Ill-Fitting Skin, is winner of the Press 53 Award for Short Fiction (forthcoming with Press 53 in May 2024). Her writing has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, The Iowa Review, Joyland, Water-Stone Review, Nimrod, failbetter, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in fiction from Washington University in St. Louis, and in 2011 she was the Writer-in-Residence at Interlochen Center for the Arts. Other honors include Nimrod's Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction, grants from the Elizabeth George Foundation and the Canada Council for the Arts, a Hedgebrook Fellowship, a Sewanee Scholarship, and an Independent Artist Award from the Maryland Arts Council. She teaches creative writing at Johns Hopkins University and lives in Baltimore with her husband and son. www.shannonrobinson.org

Morgan Parker is a poet, essayist, and novelist. She is the author of the young adult novel Who Put This Song On?; and the poetry collections Other People's Comfort Keeps Me Up At Night, There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé, and Magical Negro, which won the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, winner of a Pushcart Prize, and has been hailed by The New York Times as “a dynamic craftsperson” of “considerable consequence to American poetry.”Parker's debut book of nonfiction, You Get What You Pay For is available at your favorite bookstore.

Ruby Roth's work is defined by the female form and depicts the inner lives of women through emotionally visceral representations of the bodies they inhabit.For the past several years, amidst a radical transition from a decade of familial life as a best-selling children's book author-illustrator to self-determined independence as a single female artist, Roth has explored the deep end of the feminine spectrum and its archetypes.Roth's work often features solitary women navigating inner and outer wildernesses. In vast emptiness, surrounded by hints of nature, her wild women and “girl gods” find their way through physical and spiritual dimensions of darkness and light, bondage and freedom, apocalypse and utopia, life and death, transmuting nourishing or toxic forces into usable means.Roth has been a keen observer of the body since childhood, having been diagnosed with scoliosis, which required 13 years of aggressive and painful treatment. Rooted in academic anatomy and pop surrealism, her artwork——often created in live-model sessions——exaggerates and distorts female forms to reflect them as vessels of powerful, feminine processing.Roth is based in Los Angeles, CA.SRTN Website

Mark Ostler joins the show to kick around comic books - specifically his work Ivar the Boxer and Waltzing Carpet JulietteWe also talked about Warning: Danger! The world's safest punk band! Warning: Danger! began with Mark Ostler's idea for a video project, called “Holly FLipS,” about a girl freaking out and destroying things after a bad breakup. Mark wanted some theme music for the video and recruited some friends to help record the song. The recording of the song would have been the beginning and end of the project if they had not been invited by friends to play a show at The Funhouse. The band quickly wrote five more songs in order to be able to play the show. Warning: Danger!'s unusual performance was a hit and the band was invited to play more show dates which gradually led to W:D! becoming a "real band." Meanwhile the “Holly FLipS” video project got sidelined, but was eventually completed years later.Check out Episode 265!!!SRTN

This episode is very different than others. Jim LaBelle, this episode's featured guest, passed away recently. I wish, hope and pray that our conversation gives tribute to Jim's contributions and advocacy. Thank you and farewell Jim. Host Ken Volante"There are certain individuals that go under the radar their entire lives despite being one of the most resilient people in the room, and that is without question Jim LaBelle. A father, world traveler, lawyer, disability advocate and professor, Jim's story isn't well known to many, but we hope to change that. A quadriplegic since 1969 and passing on April 21st, 2024, he was paralyzed for nearly 55 years and showed a life can be well lived in spite of paralysis." Spinalpedia Blog"For over fifty years, I have been pushing my chair. I graduated from law school and passed the bar exam in three states. My travels took me to twenty-three countries. My story is not an inspirational anecdote; it's about finding love, losing love, grief, joy, and single parenthood.Don't call me 'bound' or 'confined' to my wheelchair. My chair gives me freedom.A wheelchair user today has more rights than one did fifty years ago. Yet there are still many obstacles in finding housing, transportation, employment, and medical care.I am not trying to be a role model, just a possibility. There are obstacles, and people may not always treat you properly, but there is progress."Jim LaBelle

Blend a background in fast-paced PR, political campaigns, and a lot of roll-up-your-sleeves energy, and you've Stuart Collective founder and CEO Kathleen Stuart.Kathleen founded Stuart Collective in 2017. With a crystal-clear mission to support changemakers in securing progressive wins, Kathleen works every day to win campaigns, pass high-profile legislation, and influence public opinion.Kathleen brings over a decade of on-the-ground political work in campaigns and leading PR strategies. As a result, she advises leading progressive organizations that impact all the spaces — from healthcare to housing to infrastructure and more — that Stuart Collective shares with its clients.Stuart Collective

Ivana Yellowback is a member of Manto Sipi Cree Nation – God's River (maternal family) and a relative to Mathias Colomb Cree Nation (paternal family). She is both Asiniskow Ithinew ekwa Muskego Ininew (High Rock and Muskeg Cree).Ivana an Associate Producer, Writer, Cree host, and English co-host of Eagle Vision's and APTN's 7TH GEN Home (7thgen.ca) Cree Webisodes | 7TH GEN (2022/2023/2024). She has also acted as principal characters in “DJ Burnt Bannock” (2021) The Team — DJ Burnt Bannock, along with “Little Bird” (2023) 'Little Bird,' From Fremantle, Rezolution: Jennifer Podemski Talks - Variety.Ivana holds a 4-year Bachelor of Arts HONOURS degree at the University of Winnipeg (4-Year Honours BA: Sociology, Minor: Conflict Resolution Studies), and a Bachelor of Social Work degree at the University of Manitoba. She is also starting her Masters of Social Work degree this upcoming Fall at the University of Manitoba.Ivana holds 10+ years of experience in social services work, spanning from program development and implementation, facilitation, and workshop trainings (various), youth mentorship and leadership, and social advocacy and counselling.Ivana is an Executive Training Facilitator (with Indigenous Leadership Development Institute Inc.), an executive board member for sakihiwe festival, and is an oskâpêwiskwew (helper) member of the Indigenous Helpers Society. She is also a trained Traditional Family Parenting facilitator, a Grief and Loss Facilitator, and Indigenous Life Skills Coach. Ivana's most important roles and work is being an aunty, pipe carrier, lodge carrier, drum carrier and singer.SRTN Website

Teghan Hammond and Mel Hammond are sisters who grew up punching each other whenever they saw a P.T. Cruiser, dying their hair blue together, and fabricating a fake band in which their middle brother was (allegedly) the lead singer. Writing Lucy, Uncensored was their first time co-writing. Unless you count the summer they spent scribbling down recipes for the strangest sandwiches you've ever heard of, like the Tax Exemption Wrap (Teghan) and the Nail Gun Sandwich (Mel).Today, Teghan lives in northern Indiana, where she drinks excessive amounts of coffee and volunteers for LGBTQIA+ causes. When she's not tearing down gender norms, Teghan is probably watching cartoons or gaming. Mel lives in Madison, Wisconsin, where she writes books in a rainbow-painted room. Besides writing, she loves walking in the woods and eating dairy-free ice cream. Between the two of them, Teghan and Mel have four adorable cats. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/750113/lucy-uncensored-by-mel-hammond-and-teghan-hammond/Folks can also preorder from their local indie bookstores. ISBN is 9780593814055.Publisher is Knopf Books for Young Readers Website: www.melhammondbooks.com TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@hamtasticduo Mel's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hamsandwichmel/ SRTN Website

Special Spring 2024 NYC Fringe Festival episode with three dynamic creators!Lauren O'Brien presents Lolo's Boyfriend Show - a new comedic solo show, the writer is also the performer;Suzanne Bachner presents Conversations with My Divorce Attorney - the playwright also directs the two hander play which she started writing many years ago when she was getting a divorce. Her current husband stars as her divorce attorney;Jude Treder-Wolff presents FASTER - real life therapist and playwright wrote a new show about how technology is speeding up our lives. She also performs the play.SRTN WebsiteNYC Fringe

From Page Stephenson: "Sometimes my life feels as though I am both the director and the directed. As I attempt to navigate the vast ocean of choices, I often find myself adrift. It's in these moments that inspiration often bubbles to the surface. My creative adventures have enabled me to collaborate with giants like Google, Red Bull, Patagonia, and Netflix. These projects have sent me around the globe, expanding my perspective beyond my wildest dreams. I have been fortunate enough to play with robotic arms, fast computers, remote aircraft, and even real movie cameras. For me, it isn't about the gear, brands, or crazy stories; it's the journey of the self. I spend my time lost in video games, cinema, and researching new tools of expression because I love doing so; it is a way of life and it has sculpted me.Hopefully, I can sculpt a small bit in return."SRTN podcast

M.J. Bassett is an English director, writer, and producer of film and television. She began her career directing the cult horror films Deathwatch and Wilderness, the dark fantasy Solomon Kane, and the video game adaptation Silent Hill: Revelation. Since 2012, she has worked as a director and writer on high-profile television series like Strike Back, Ash vs Evil Dead, Power and Altered Carbon. Check out ROGUE with Megan Fox and the upcoming RED SONJA movie!SRTN Website

Ben Tanzer's work includes the short story collection UPSTATE, the science fiction novel Orphans and the essay collections Lost in Space and Be Cool. Tanzer is a storySouth and Pushcart nominee, a finalist for the Annual National Indie Excellence and Eric Hoffer Book Awards, a winner of the Devil's Kitchen Literary Festival Nonfiction Prose Award and a Midwest Book Award, and has received an Honorable Mention at the Chicago Writers Association Book Awards for Traditional Non-Fiction and a Bronze Medal from the Independent Publisher Book Awards. Tanzer has also also written for Hemispheres, Punk Planet, Men's Health, and The Arrow, AARP's GenX newsletter..The Missing releasing March 21, 2024, nearly contemporaneous contemporaneously with this special episode release!SRTN Website

Philip Barasch has maintained a lifelong interest in sequential art. He is the creator of HandHewn, a magazine designed to explore the Graphic Short Story art form. His years in Portland, Oregon included involvement with The Stumptown Comic Book Convention, Sequential Art Gallery and Talisman Gallery. Philip and his wife, Charis, relocated to Astoria, Oregon in 2018. Charis departed this world in 2022, radically altering Philip's art form. He is now creatively consumed by this forced, revolutionary reinvention.SRTN Podcast

Guest host Kinneret Ely interviews opera star Nicholas TamagnaNicholas Tamagna's meteoric rise in recent years has made him one of the world's most fascinating alto voices. Highlights of the last few seasons were undoubtedly his interpretation of Ermano in the award-winning CD recording of Gismondo, re di Polonia (Leonardo Vinci) on the Parnassus label and its extensive concert tour, his MET debut in March 2020 in Sir David's McVicar's re-visited production of Händel's Agrippina as Narciso, at the side of Joyce DiDonato, Harry Bicket, Kate Lindsey and Brenda Rae as well as the worldwide cinema broadcast of the performance and his spectacular interpretation of the Händel roles Ruggiero in Alcina and Silvio in Il Pastor Fido at the Händel Festival in Halle, Tolomeo in Giulio Cesare in Egitto at the Göttingen Händel Festival, and most recently his debut at Bayreuth Baroque 2022 as Timagene in the highly-acclaimed production of Vinci's Alessandro nell'Indie from Max Emanuel Cenčić, at the side of Bruno de Sà, Franco Fagioli, and Jake Arditti. In future seasons, he will be heard at such prestigious houses as San Francisco Opera, Israeli National Opera in Tel Aviv, Theater an der Wien in Vienna, Austria, Pinchgut Opera in Sydney, Australia, and Bayreuth Baroque.SRTN Podcast

Chimen Kouri is a writer based in Cliffwood Beach, New Jersey. Her work has been featured in Goat's Milk Magazine, Blood Moon Poetry, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and more. She fell in love with storytelling one Christmas morning during a power outage when she and her parents laid in bed while her father told stories about his life in Lebanon. She is currently writing two full-length poetry and prose collections, What Haunts Me the Most and The Old Dutchburn House, and her first novel, Miss America Is Burning. When she isn't writing, you can find her cuddling her dogs and cats and rewatching The Last Kingdom on Netflix. For more of her work, check her out on Instagram SRTN

TJ McGowan aka The Everyday Bite is a Bronx based writer, poet, and spoken word artist who has performed all over the Tri-State. His written work has been published in Flash Fiction Mag, Collective Unrest, 35MM, Mojave Heart, Vamp Cat, United: Red, BX Writers, to name a few. His body-autonomy poem, I Am Not Her Bones, and its incendiary performance was recipient of the 2019 Poem of the Year at the Word Masters Poetry Gala. The written version can be found in Wide Eyes Publishing's anthology, War Crimes Against the Uterus.He has one full-length poetry collection, We Are Not One Thing, currently available for purchase. In addition to that, he is one half of the the trip-rock poetry and meditative metal duo, Subtle Bodies, most recently writing/directing the short poetic film for their debut EP, Apocalyptic Hearts.When not slinging poetry or music, he spends his days as an Associate Producer for a Film & TV company based in NYC, contributing to script and creative copy on most of the productions that pass through the doors. He is also way more interesting than this bio, so come out to one of his shows and chop it up with him. Contrary to the stage name, he does not bite...unless provoked.SRTN Podcast

Mortal Emblem owner Olivia Britz-Wheat is a multimedia artist who has been tattooing for over 15 years in Portland. She hails originally from Colorado, attended college in Missoula, Montana until learning how to tattoo under Phil Roberson and Jed Dillon.Enjoy this wide-ranging conversation and regale in thoughts about art, Depeche Mode, Portland, The Lloyd Center mystique and VHS love.SRTN Website

ART FUN w/ Riccelle and Chelsea - hosts of the Baroque B**ches Podcast!How much fun can you have on a podcast? I dunno but this was hella fun. Join this wildly ranging art, life, and raunch conversation to discover what you did not want to know but, really, c'mon, you actually really did want to know.Art Scholarship for the People!!!BB Website up in hereSRTN Website

Death is the high cost of living. The weight of that knowledge can feel crippling but is it there we find the deepest and most important knowledge of how to live?After tragedy struck in 2013, Elizabeth Coplan turned to writing to express her personal grief. She wrote many published essays, and later, after experiencing three losses in less than a year, she turned to writing plays focused on this global experience known as death. In 2016, Elizabeth developed the groundbreaking play, Grief Dialogues, and built the nonprofit Grief Dialogues, a theatrical movement creating new conversations about dying, death, and grief.Elizabeth is the script consultant, director, and producer for Juntos Nos Ayudamos/Better Together, a film about a Hispanic family surviving suicide. She is also the creator and the co-host of the podcast, Out of Grief Comes Art, and the Executive Producer of 8 AM, an award-winning short film on traumatic loss.'Til Death, Elizabeth's full-length play about one mother's choice that unveils a family's long-buried secrets, opens Off-Broadway in November 2023 under the direction of Chad Austin, Producing Director of the Abingdon Theatre. The play stars Two-Time Tony Award Winner Judy Kaye, Tony Award Nominee Robert Cuccioli, with Whitney Morse, Dominick LaRuffa Jr., Michael Lee Brown, TV and film star Amy Hargreaves.In addition to an updated production of Grief Dialogues scheduled to open in New York City 2024, Elizabeth is currently working on The Book Club, a new play highlighting the lives of five senior women. She is collaborating with Ina Chadwick on The a Chronicles, a theatrical series of stories that spark conversations about women's reproductive rights, and on a TV sitcom pilot Act Three, a coming-of-age story about a late-in-life emerging playwright. All before she turns 70 in June 2024.Elizabeth Coplan SRTN Website

ALLYSON MCCABE is a journalist whose work is heard on NPR's newsmagazines, public radio stations and programs, and podcasts. Also appearing in publications such as the New York Times, New York Magazine/Vulture, BBC Culture, Wired, and Bandcamp, McCabe is also the author of WHY SINEAD O'CONNOR MATTERS, UT Press, 2023.SRTN Podcast

Katherine Yeske Taylor began her career as a rock critic in Atlanta in the 1990s, interviewing Georgia musical royalty such as the Indigo Girls, R.E.M., and the Black Crowes while still a teenager. Since then, she has conducted several hundred interviews and contributes regularly to Billboard, Flood, Spin, and American Songwriter, among others. She is a longtime New York City resident and is extremely active in the downtown rock scene.SRTN Website

Shippentower signs with the Oregon RavensKola Shippentower is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. She has co-founded and is the Director of The Wisáwca Project - Enough Iz Enough, a non-profit organization working together for change, for better communication and involvement.Kola has developed a Safety Plan to be utilized by anyone in identifying safety methods, contacts, and procedures to keep one safe whether in an abusive relationship or a plan to track a missing person. She is a professional fighter and brown belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Welcome back to the show Kola!!!Waymakers Ravens VideoOregon RavensSRTN Website

Minnesota musician, Katy Tessman is an optimistic and approachable singer-songwriter with a voice full of the wisdom she's gained through cancer survival, heartbreak, and motherhood. Her powerful vocals and rhythmic approach to guitar (or mandolin) express a straight-from-the-heart songwriting style that moves passionately over diverse emotional and musical terrain.SRTN Podcast