Episoder
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It’s episode #144 and I’m chatting with Celia McBride, a Canadian multi-disciplinary artist originally from the Yukon, now living in Port Hope.
As a playwright, Celia’s work was developed by numerous theatre companies in Canada (infinitheatre, Nightwood, Factory), and produced internationally by Red Kettle Theatre (Ireland) and Looking Glass Theatre (New York).
She was commissioned by the Stratford Festival of Canada for the Studio Theatre’s inaugural season, and Walk Right Up premiered there in 2002.
From 2005-2011, Celia was the Co-Artistic Director of Sour Brides Theatre, touring her play So Many Doors (Playwrights Canada Press) across Canada.
In 2015, she released a feature film, Last Stop for Miles, adapted from one of her first plays.
Since 2014, Celia has been working as a spiritual director and providing spiritual care in long-term care homes.
She published O My God: An Un-Becoming Journey, a memoir, in 2022.
It was so lovely to connect with Celia, and I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy listening in.
Website: celiamcbride.com
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It’s episode #143 and I’m chatting with Victoria Albina, Nurse Practitioner with a Master’s Degree in Public Health.
This was such a great conversation! Victoria is intelligent, deep, knowledgeable and wise.
We talked about how to identify when you’re defaulting to perfectionism and people-pleasing, what the term ‘somatics’ means to her, what tipping points are like (the shift from thinking your feelings to feeling your feelings) and got into the fun stuff - all the ‘nerditry and all the woo’.
More about Victoria: she coaches codependent folks socialized as women to stop feeling anxious, exhausted and overwhelmed, so they can have better relationships with their partners, parents, and themselves.
She does this because she knows this - she spent the first 30 years of her life stuck in codependent and perfectionist thinking.
Being mean to herself, often without even realizing it.
Demanding "perfection" from herself, not knowing that she was already perfect and worthy of love (just like you).
Victoria is also a Master Certified Life Coach, and trained with The Life Coach School, the best boutique program in the country.She’s a certified Breathwork Journey Meditation Facilitator, and she’s experienced, having worked in health and wellness internationally as well as in the US, for 20 years.
It was so lovely to connect with Victoria, and I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy listening in.
Website: Victoria Albina
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Manglende episoder?
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It’s episode #142 and I’m offering you a body-based writing prompt that sources from your nipples. We all have them!
Take in the exploration, then set a timer and flow write for somewhere between 5 and 20 minutes. See what arises. Enjoy!
And, for more offerings like this, including my transformational, body-centric memoir-writing course, The Art of Personal Mythmaking, go to my website, janellehardy.com.
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It’s episode #141 and I’m telling you an Irish fairy tale, The Brewery of Eggshells.
If this story resonates with you, I really encourage you to read and listen to a few different versions, and make the story your own.
Then stick around after the story for some guidance on working with tales like this, and your personal stories, and then, to start your own personal mythmaking get started with my free on-demand workshop, Outline Your Memoir Using Fairy Tale and Myth as Your Guide.
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It’s episode #140 and I’m chatting with Nicole Breit, a writer and the founder of Spark Your Story, an online writing school.
I met Nicole online when she reached out to connect over our shared love of writing, teaching writing, and the challenges and delights of marketing and teaching writing courses online, from Canada.
So, here’s some more about Nicole. She’s an award-winning essayist, poet, and writing instructor based on the traditional, unceded territory of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh people in Gibsons, BC.
She holds a B.A. in English Literature (UVIC), graduating with distinction in 1996; a B.Ed. in 1999 (UBC); and a Certificate in Foundations of Narrative Therapy (2020).
Nicole’s writing explores themes of grief and healing in lyric narratives about her identity as a queer femme, as well as varied experiences of personal loss.
Her work has been widely published in literary journals and anthologies including Brevity, Pithead Chapel, Event, Hippocampus, Room, The Fiddlehead, The Puritan, After the Art, The Sounds of Silence: Journeys Through Miscarriage, and Swelling with Pride: Queer Conception and Adoption Stories.
In 2016 Nicole was the winner of the CNFC/carte blanche creative nonfiction award – the same year she won Room magazine’s CNF prize for her essay, “An Atmospheric Pressure” (selected as a Notable by the editors of Best American Essays 2017).
Her online programs center on empowerment, helping authors develop tools to move past blocks and get their difficult stories on the page as they experiment with non-traditional and hybrid storytelling structures.
When she isn’t coaching memoir writers in the Spark Your Story Lab, testing chocolate or watching This Is Us, she loves spending time at home with her wife and two kids.
It was so lovely to connect with Nicole, and I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy listening in.
Website: Spark Your Story
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It’s episode #139 and I’m offering you a body-based writing prompt that sources from your hands.
Take in the exploration, then set a timer and flow write for somewhere between 5 and 20 minutes. See what arises. Enjoy!
And, for more offerings like this, including my transformational, body-centric memoir-writing course, The Art of Personal Mythmaking, go to my website, janellehardy.com.
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It’s episode #138 and I’m telling you the fairy tale of The Juniper Tree, from the Grimm's Brother's collection.
Sit back and enjoy having a story told to you.
Let your body and your soul soak up the essence of the story magic and medicine.
Stick around after the story for some guidance on working with tales like this, and your personal stories, and then, to start your own personal mythmaking get started with my free on-demand workshop, Outline Your Memoir Using Fairy Tale and Myth as Your Guide.
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Michelle Boyd, PhD, is the founder of InkWell Academic Writing Retreats, a transformative, retreat-based training program that teaches scholars to overcome their writing fears.
I met Michelle through a personal introduction via Tara McMullin’s small business What Works Network. Someone there thought I’d like Michelle and her work, and they were completely right.
Michelle is a kindred spirit and does wonderful work in the world. I’m so delighted to share a conversation that traverses (and helps me heal) the world of academia and academic writing, making the switch to entrepreneurship and supporting aspiring writers. Michelle also shared a bit about her affirming experience at an HBCU (historically black university), which, for me as a white Canadian, was a new learning. So, before I give too much more of our conversation away, I’ll share more about Michelle and her accomplishments, and then jump into our conversation.
Michelle is an award-winning writer, a former tenured faculty member, and the founder of InkWell Academic Writing Retreats, where she specializes in helping stuck, scared scholars free themselves from fear and build a satisfying, sustainable writing practice.
She has been leading scholarly writing retreats since she was a faculty member in 2012, when she co-founded and coached a dissertation writing retreat for graduate students studying race and ethnicity. Three years later, Michelle left academia and founded InkWell, and has since helped hundreds of scholars—from all ranks and a wide range of institutions and inter/disciplines—move past their anxieties, reconnect with their writing, and develop a calmer, more confident, more productive writing practice.
Michelle has received many honors for her scholarly, nonfiction, and audio work. Her book Jim Crow Nostalgia: Reconstructing Race in Bronzeville was a Finalist for the 2006 SSHA President’s Book Award and winner of the 2008 Race, Ethnicity and Politics Section Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association.
Her essay Backpack was a Finalist for the 2015 Columbia Journal Writing Contest. And along with co-producer Erica Meiners, she won the 2013 Lux/Lumina Multimedia Audio Essay Contest for their audio essay Reconstructions.
In addition, Michelle is a self-described struggling writer whose success as a writer and scholar belies the challenges she faces throughout her career as an academic. Michelle knows what it's like to have no time to write, to procrastinate when there is time, and to struggle when the writing is going nowhere.
Better yet, she knows—from experience and research—that successful scholars write from the inside out: they turn inward to discover their own writing process. So they can find the calm and courage they need to stay connected to their writing.
Her book Becoming the Writer You Already Are is forthcoming with SAGE in 2022.
It was so lovely to connect with Michelle, and I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy listening in.
Website: InkWell Academic Writing Retreats Book: Becoming the Writer You Already Are -
It’s episode #136 and I’m offering you a body-based writing prompt that sources from your eyes. There are so many directions I could take the prompt of eyes in. I can’t do all of them in one prompt, so there may be another eye writing prompt at some point. Fun fun!
Take in the exploration, then set a timer and flow write for somewhere between 5 and 20 minutes. See what arises. Enjoy!
And, for more offerings like this, including my transformational, body-centric memoir-writing course, The Art of Personal Mythmaking, go to my website, janellehardy.com.
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It’s episode #135 and I’m telling you another fairy tale that my Personal Mythmaking students often choose to work with. It’s the tale of Beauty and the Beast, which has a long and complicated folkloric history.
And although there are tales of brides and animal grooms from all over the world, the first written version of Beauty and the Beast came from 1740, in French. La Belle et La Bête, by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Gallon de Villeneuve. This version has become the standard version of the tale so many of us know.
And since it’s one that’s often chosen, I’m going to stick with this classic version, but if the story resonates with you, I really encourage you to read and listen to a few different versions, and make the story your own.
Then stick around after the story for some guidance on working with tales like this, and your personal stories, and then, to start your own personal mythmaking go to my website at www.janellehardy.com to get started with my free on-demand workshop, Outline Your Memoir Using Fairy Tale and Myth as Your Guide. -
Dr. Sara Cleto, from Atlanta, Georgia, and Dr. Brittany Warman, from Warrenton, Virginia, are award-winning folklorists, teachers, and writers.
As if that’s not enough, they founded The Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic in 2016, where they teach creative souls how to re-enchant their lives through folklore and fairy tales.
Click, click, click. As usual, I found Sara and Brittany because I’m insatiably curious and am also deeply devoted to procrastination and avoidance of whatever I ‘should’ be doing by doing ‘research’ instead.
This ‘research’ looks like virtuous ‘prep’ for programs that are already set up. So, confession over, I simply enjoy exploring ideas and people out there in the world, and the internet makes it outrageously easy to waste time indulging in my curiosity.
In this case, I’m grateful. Sara and Brittany are fellow story-lovers and kindred spirits, and as eclectically curious and entrepreneurial as me. Here’s a little more about them and their school:
They both earned their PhDs in English and Folklore from The Ohio State University in 2018 and their MAs from George Mason University in 2012, two of the best folklore programs in the US, and together they have a combined 26 years in higher education and over three dozen publications.
In 2019, The Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic received the Dorothy Howard Prize from the Folklore and Education Section of the American Folklore Society, an award that honors those who “us[e] folklore in educational settings in rich and meaningful ways […] both within and outside the classroom” - they praised Carterhaugh as “a folk school for the digital age.” An online center for classes on topics like fairy tales, legends, and more, Carterhaugh is also a community of people who love the magic of folklore.
Together, Sara and Brittany have authored over three dozen publications - non-fiction, fiction, and poetry - in such venues as Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies, Gramarye, Uncanny Magazine, Enchanted Living, Mythic Delirium, and many more.
They’re also devoted cat minions, gif masters, obsessed with chai, and 100% B.F.F.s of more than a decade. They love red lipstick, decadent Gothic novels, and totally crush “Total Eclipse of the Heart” at karaoke.
It was so lovely to connect with Sara and Brittany, and I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy listening in.
Website: http://www.carterhaughschool.com Freebie: https://carterhaughschool.com/carterhaugh-folk-magic/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/carterhaughschool -
In this brief episode, I offer you a body-based writing prompt that sources from your brain teeth. You know, that part of you that 'chews on words'.
Take in the exploration, then set and timer and flow write for somewhere between 5 and 20 minutes. See what arises. Enjoy!
And then, for more guidance on somatic body writing, personal transformation and memoir-writing, go to my website, janellehardy.com to get started.
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I’m telling you a fairy tale, one that is often chosen by my Personal Mythmaking students. It’s the tale of Red Riding Hood, from the Tales of the Brothers Grimm.
And since it’s one that’s often chosen, I’m reading this classic version, but if the story resonates with you, I really encourage you to read and listen to a few different versions, and make the story your own.
I had fond memories of watching this story come to life on the stage of my daughter’s Grade 8 class. Each of her classmates stepped into their role, and my daughter relished the wildly wicked and lascivious version of the Wolf.
What a delight to watch, a young woman getting a chance to step into the theatrical shoes of a predator, a 'bad guy', rather than be the prey (although, of course, someone else was in the role of prey, of Little Red).
Stick around after the story for some guidance on working with tales like this, and your personal stories, and then, to start your own personal mythmaking go to my website at www.janellehardy.com to get started with my free on-demand workshop, Outline Your Memoir Using Fairy Tale and Myth as Your Guide.
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Molly Pennington, PhD, is a consulting astrologer and award-winning writer.
I’m truly excited to share this conversation with Molly because she is, hands down, one of the most incredible writers I know, and I can’t wait for her to get her memoir published so I can read it and share it with as many people as possible.
She’s also a phenomenal astrologer, deep thinker, and someone who delights in learning.
In fact, Molly is also an alumni of my transformational memoir-writing course, The Art of Personal Mythmaking. She’s taken it twice, and we talk some about her experiences in my course and how it’s supported her memoir writing but also her healing path.
But first, a little more about Molly. And, soak it up. It’s her bio, written by herself, so although I’m reading it, it’s all Molly’s wordplay…
Molly always wanted to be a writer and she suspects she was a real one long before she dared admit to it. As a child, she fell in love with books and reading. She wanted to know the true personality of every member of the alphabet and contemplate why and how a good pun could shimmer.
Eventually, she became a writer by trade, and brazenly enjoyed her skilled affront to all things literary as she composed zip-tinsel copy for products she could never care about while churning out listicles, sometimes for the more futile periodicals slumming in the back corners of the internet.
She has worked in most of the ways a keyed-up logophile will: editor, essayist, joke writer, ghost writer, speech writer, copywriter, caption writer, content writer, in sum, as a Freelance Writer. “Freelance” does originate as an adjective (reliant on a pen = sword metaphor) to describe marauding soldiers-for-hire beholden to no one, except themselves.
Pennington wields her “lance” with rowdy elegance and surefire handicraft on projects to which she is under contract as well as when she is free.
She is at work on her memoir, Mad River: Autopsy of Father/Daughter Love & Hate, that chronicles how she discovered her father’s 38 page suicide diary that recounts a performance of death and confession—after which she’s plunged into an odyssey where she uncovers the mysteries of the father she never knew and could never have imagined. A disturbing, illuminative, and finally, transformative process.
She received a PhD in Critical and Cultural Studies from the University of Pittsburgh where she taught courses in English, Film, and Visual Culture for 13 years. She’s won several writing awards (prestigious and obscure) and is eschewing here the convention of listing them out.)
Recently, she experienced a fusion between her prior academic obsessions and her study of ancient astrology. Both interests in structural archetypes found a kindred alignment with her joy in articulating experience as lyrical and poetic.
She is a lifelong theorist around the ways we make meaning-- around the ways puns and similar word plays and metaphors, can shimmer. You can find her astrological chart consultations at Baroque Moon Astrology and her writing life at Molly Pennington.
It was so lovely to connect with Molly, and I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy listening in.
Writer site: www.mollypennington.com Astrology site: www.baroquemoonastrology.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/baroque_moon/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/baroque_moon -
In this brief episode, I offer you a body-based writing prompt that sources from your hair.
Take in the exploration, then set and timer and flow write for somewhere between 5 and 20 minutes. See what arises. Enjoy!
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I’m telling you the tale of Iron Hans, from the Tales of the Brothers Grimm.
Stick around after the story for some guidance on working with tales like this, and your personal stories, and then, to start your own personal mythmaking go to my website at www.janellehardy.com to get started with my free on-demand workshop, Outline Your Memoir Using Fairy Tale and Myth as Your Guide.
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I’m chatting with Carina Bissett a writer, poet, and educator working primarily in the fields of dark fiction and fabulism.
Her short fiction and poetry have been published in multiple journals and anthologies including Into the Forest, Upon a Twice Time, Bitter Distillations: An Anthology of Poisonous Tales, Arterial Bloom, Gorgon: Stories of Emergence, Weird Dream Society, Hath No Fury, and the HWA Poetry Showcase (Vol. V, VI, and VIII).
She has also written stories set in shared worlds for RPGs at Green Ronin Publishing and Onyx Path Publishing. In addition to writing, she has edited several projects; the most recent is in the role as co-editor for Shadow Atlas: Dark Landscapes of the Americas.
As an educator, Carina has taught at Pikes Peak Community College, Glendale Community College, and Arizona State University. She also participated in the Colorado Writing Project and works with educators to develop writing instruction in college and secondary school classrooms.
She currently offers workshops focused on story generation at The Storied Imaginarium.
Her fiction has been nominated for the Sundress Publications Best of the Net Award and was a finalist for the Ron L. Hubbard Writers of the Future Awards. Her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the Sundress Publications Best of the Net Award. In her editorial capacity, she’s received recognition as a Finalist at the Colorado Book Awards 2022 (Anthology) and as a Finalist in the Fiction: Anthologies category of the 2022 International Book Awards.
It was so lovely to connect with Carina, and I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy listening in.
So here we go!
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In this brief episode, I offer you a body-based writing prompt that sources from your forearms.
Take in the exploration, then set and timer and flow write for somewhere between 5 and 20 minutes. See what arises. Enjoy!
For more offerings like this, go to my website, janellehardy.com.
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It’s episode #126 and I’m telling you a brief fable - the Russian story of The Scorpion and the Frog.
Sit back and enjoy having a story told to you.
Let your body and your soul soak up the essence of the story magic and medicine.
Stick around after the story for some guidance on working with tales like this, and your personal stories, and then, to start your own personal mythmaking go to my website at www.janellehardy.com to get started with my free on-demand workshop, Outline Your Memoir Using Fairy Tale and Myth as Your Guide.
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It’s episode #125 and I’m chatting with Heidi Parkes, quilter, artist and educator.
The way I met Heidi is another delightful story of people following their interests through clicks until, eventually, the connection point happens.
In 2018, I was a guest on Amber Magnolia Hill’s podcast, Medicine Stories. Heidi listened to our conversation, then looked me up and subscribed to my newsletter list. I had no idea.
She stayed on my newsletter list, and then, last year, just after I’d discovered a delightfully genuine quilter named Zak Foster on Instagram and started following him, I saw a post he shared about a collaboration he does with Heidi. So i clicked through and though, oooo, another neat textile artist.
Then, I sent out a newsletter story about a program I offer called Blood Mending. The referrence to hand sewing and mending caught Heidi’s attention and she replied to the e-mail to share her response. And then, we slowly became friends and collaborators.
So of course, I want to have her on the podcast, because we’re kindred spirits and more importantly, she does things that have to do with the themes of this podcast and my work – working with personal stories through art – in Heidi’s case, quilts – and an interest in healing, the body and story. Here’s a little more about her before we jump into the conversation…
Before Heidi Parkes was born in Chicago, IL in 1982, her grandmother organized a collaborative family quilt to commemorate her birth. This set the tone for a life centered on the handmade- raised in a home where sewing, mending, cooking, canning, woodworking, photography, ceramics, painting, and plasterwork were the norm.
Now based in Milwaukee, her quilting and mending celebrate the hand, and her works tug at memories and shared experience. Often using specific textiles, like an heirloom tablecloth, bed sheet, or cloth teabag, Heidi adds subtle meaning and material memory from the start.
Ever curious, she works with a variety of quilting techniques including visible hand piecing and knots, improvisation, patchwork, and applique.
Heidi pursues her passion for teaching by lecturing and leading workshops, and shares her creative process with thousands on Instagram. Heidi has exhibited in art and textile museums across the country and was an Artist in Residence at Milwaukee’s Lake Park through the ARTservancy with Gallery 224 in fall 2020-21.
Additionally, Heidi lives a handmade lifestyle, sewing her own clothes, fermenting, eating from pottery she made a decade ago, and practicing hand yoga, which she shares with other creatives on her YouTube channel.
It was so lovely to connect with Heidi, and I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy listening in.
Website: www.heidiparkes.com
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