Restoration and remediation expert Michael Rubino joins me today to discuss his critical work and book The Mold Medic. We uncover the often unnoticed way that mold can form and proliferate in our homes, even in dry climates like New Mexico. How our health can be seriously compromised by the biotoxins mold produces and how to prevent mold in the first place. Michael is not a medical professional himself but consults with doctors and specialists who are putting together the puzzle pieces of medical mysteries that appear to mimic other illnesses but are, in fact, caused by dangerous mold and bacteria on our homes. www.themoldmedic.com An interview not to be missed.
Earlier in her career Adrienne Youdim, M.D. was the medical director of the Center for Weight Loss at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. She observed that clients’ desire to lose weight very often masked a deeper desire for something more meaningful in their lives. For the past 15 years her private practice has revealed that many of us are hungry for more, inspiring her book Hungry for More: Stories and Science to Inspire Weight Loss from The Inside Out. In this interview Dr. Adrienne asks you what you’re really hungry for. Your own answer may surprise you, mine did. www.dradrienneyoudim.com
When pioneering labor leader Cesar Chavez put his trust in then 15-year old Antonio Salazar-Hobson by affirming, “Antonio, We Know You,” he helped to turn around Antonio’s life. The two went on to work together for 20 years.
Kidnapped at age four, heinously abused by his abductors and trafficked for sex, Antonio’s memoir, “Antonio, We Know You” is the story of the young Chicano man’s courage, the few who advocated for him, and his journey to become a fierce legal advocate for international unions, women, and Native American tribes.
Holding on to the memory of his beloved mother, 13 siblings, and his Chicano roots and culture, how does Antonio find his family of origin and the love of his life? An interview like no other, a book filled with love and hope against all odds. “Antonio, We Know You” by Antonio Salazar-Hobson.
A sensitive, heart-warming yet heartbreaking interview with Lesley Lowe author of Autumn Gold: A Rendezvous with Cancer, Knowing Death is Not Final. When her beautiful and brilliant daughter Vashti was diagnosed with the rare blood cancer Multiple Myeloma at age 31 Lesley was by her side every moment, including through two bone marrow transplants. Revealing with pain-filled accuracy Vashti’s grueling journey this interview and book is also a journey of love between mother and daughter who share a grounded spiritual awareness of life after death and also a delicious and poignant love story between Vashti and her once lost first love who comes back into her life at the perfect moment. www.33greyhound.com
Listen and be transported to the excitement, cafes, and art of the bohemian Left Bank of 1920’s Paris with author Kerri Maher who literally embodies the spirit and mind of courageous bookseller Sylvia Beach. In her new novel, The Paris Bookseller, Maher weaves the true story of the creation of the famous bookstore, Shakespeare and Company, and Sylvia’s intrepid saga to overcome censorship to publish the first edition of James Joyce’s groundbreaking Ulysses and “smuggle” it into prohibition-era New York City.
A sumptuous novel, taste “forbidden” love and delicious food, and sit in Beach’s wonderful bookstore with the “cultural creatives” of their time, Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, and of course Joyce himself. How does an historical novelist bring her legendary characters to life? www.kerrimaher.com
A poignant interview to commemorate World Holocaust Remembrance Day with Canadian composer and author Stella ter Hart. As a child, Stella knew nothing about her family’s horrific recent past, nor of her Jewish heritage. However, no secret is safe forever as the sub-title to her book, Discovering Twins, warns us. Part memoir, part biography, and part vividly re-imagined true stories, Stella discovers first through whispers and then through ancestral web site myheritage.com, not only the extraordinary prevalence of twins in her family, but that more than 1,200 members of her family perished in Auschwitz-Berkenau and labor camps including most of the sweet twins.
Her mother, born in Holland, had been trained in childhood never to reveal that she was half-Jewish and her deception was the only thing that saved her life as her cousins, aunts and uncles were rounded up and transported to hell. Weaving skillfully back and forth between present day and 1940’s Amsterdam and filled with photographs of happy, loving families lost to the Nazi gas chambers, Discovering Twins is honest, graphic, and beautifully written. Stellaterhart.com
A true delight to welcome Santa Fe’s Miriam Sagan, creative writing teacher and gifted, award-winning author of over 30 books of poetry, memoir and fiction. Miriam joins me today to read from her new collection Start Again. A fascinating and intimate conversation revealing that poetry doesn’t necessarily have to stem from anger or disillusionment, but that careful observation and perception offer both the writer and the reader a doorway to profound understanding, hope and joy.
Miriam has a zoom presentation and reading on Tuesday February 1st sponsored by Santa Fe Community College. Register at http://www.sfcc.edu/events/
Start Again is published by Red Mountain Press and available locally and from online vendors.
A privilege and a wonderful treat to interview one of Santa Fe’s most gifted poets, Donald Levering with fine artist Jane Shoenfeld who has recently published her first book of poetry and paintings, Petals in The Tunnel. Jane and Donald read today ahead of their February events and listeners will learn what and who has inspired their new work and perhaps feel inspired themselves.
On Thursday, February 3rd Jane brings her exquisite art and poetry to life with fellow painter Bill Sortino at the opening of "Paintings and Poetry: The Center Cannot Hold" from 5:00–7:00 at Santa Fe Community College’s Visual Arts Gallery. The exhibit will be up through February 24th. The following evening, Feb 4th they read new works together at 6:00 pm at The Strata Gallery in The Design Center, 418 Cerrillos Rd.
And on Friday, February 11th, Donald offers a free poetry workshop, “Poems on Paintings,” where participants will write poems on the Shoenfeld/Sortino exhibit. The workshop is from 1:00 to 4:00 pm at the Visual Arts Gallery, SFCC. Email dlevering@cybermesa.com or jane@skyfields.net to attend the workshop.
www.donaldlevering.com
www.janeshoenfeld.com
Subject: Podcast description, Ingrid Newkirk, January 13
Attention animal advocates: Today’s interview is with the president of PETA (People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals) Ingrid Newkirk. Ingrid’s new book is especially for cat guardians and written from a cat’s point of view: 250 Vital Things Your Cat Wants You To Know is filled with excellent and sometimes surprising tidbits, plus essential life-saving tips and information. In 23 minutes we touch on health and sickness, communication between cats and humans, and how to recognize a feline emergency. Ingrid writes and speaks with humor, compassion, and lots of experience. There’s a quiz and lots of resources at the end of the book. PETA.org
Start off the New Year with a quick health check-up of our finances with Stacking Benjamins podcaster Joe Saul-Sehy and colleague Emily Guy Birken. Their new book, Stacked: Your Super-Serious Guide to Modern Money Management, is fun and easy to read for everyone, millionaires or college students alike. We discuss insurance, smart investing, and against all past financial advice: why emotions can actually be helpful when dealing with our money! Published by Avery (Penguin) www.stackingbenjamins.com
“Who do we become when we’ve lost the things that define us ?” asks today’s guest Linda Durham, renowned former Santa Fe art gallery owner. Linda teases out some answers to this question in this candid interview about her beautifully written memoir and travel journal, Still Moving. A must listen for all of us who have lost or who are lost and an encouragement to harvest the threads of past successes and seeming failures and to keep moving. www.lindadurham.us
A caring interview with Santa Fe’s Debra Rosenman, author of the multi-award winning The Chimpanzee Chronicles: Stories of Heartbreak and Hope from Behind The Bars.
This week, Debra’s collection of essays and richly-photographed book has won its twelfth award, an extraordinary honor for a self-published book. We discuss the wisdom and joy that chimpanzees bring to our world, and the pain and suffering they’ve endured over centuries in captivity despite sharing more than 98 percent of their DNA with humans. For listeners who are writers themselves we also delve into the unique challenges of self publishing from the seed of an idea to the first keystroke to marketing the beautiful finished product. Wild Soul Press. www.debrarosenman.com
One of Santa Fe’s most loved and respected authors, Elaine Pinkerton joins me today with news of her eagerly awaited forthcoming novel Hand of Ganesh to be published in February by Pocol Press. Threading themes of a search for their birth parents amidst ancient mysteries, spiritual trial and the gorgeous landscape of India two women meet adventure and misadventure in a way only Elaine Pinkerton can tell. Weaving elements of her own life story, we discuss her decades of writing, with Santa Fe on Foot now in its 30th year of publication and her own parents’ World War II love letters From Calcutta with Love also about to be re-released. Connect with Elaine and follow her blog at www.elainepinkerton.wordpress.com
Part memoir, part real-life mystery page-turner Love’s Legacy: Viscount Chateaubriand and The Irish Girl is as absorbing and confounding as our very own ancestry quest. Professor Emeritus Daniel Fallon turns his distinguished scholarly mind to his family’s stories handed down with wit and flourish over many generations. Dan, born in Columbia, South America knows that his heritage is Spanish and Irish, but is he also descended from the French romantic writer and legendary lover Chateaubriand? His research for Love’s Legacy began in the early 1990’s two decades before ancestral DNA tests became widely available making his quest one of travel and impeccable research to find century old records and documents. Most mysteriously, why did Chateaubriand, a man who kept legions of letters, never mention his apparent depth of friendship with Mary, the Irish girl at the heart of this mystery? www.loveslegacybook.com
Performance poet, creativity coach, and screenwriter Cari Griffo reads from her newest poetry collection Sheltered and Before The Contagious, written during the heart of 2020’s pandemic lockdown. Perceptive and very relatable, Cari sought inspiration and encouragement from the minutest changes in nature that we normally miss when rushing about our normal lives. As she and her family sheltered inwardly she took the opportunity to craft and hone her innate creativity discovering ways to become “unstuck” even as doors and outdoors were still closed. Cari’s books Ripening and Sheltered can be ordered from your local bookstore. carigriffo.com
A delightful return visit to the KSFR studios from intrepid travel journalists, award-winning author Judie Fein and gifted photographer husband Paul Ross. Halloween is here and the veil between the living and dead is said to be at its “thinnest.” How to Communicate with The Dead and How Cultures Do It Around The World tells real-life stories from Paul and Judie’s conversations and experiences from South Africa to Ukraine, from Israel to Japan and beyond. In this interview we explore death traditions and ceremonies near and far, from the hair raising to the heart opening and life affirming, encouraging you, the listener, to reach out to your own departed loved ones if you wish and to listen wisely if they reach out to you. How to Communicate with The Dead is available everywhere or order from your local bookstore. www.globaladventure.us
A podcast treat for horse lovers from Judy Beil Vaughan who reads from her delightful and poignant memoir, Strawberry Roan: Growing Up in The Shadow of Hermit’s Peak. A collection of short stories set in Northern New Mexico’s beautiful mountain wilderness and her childhood in Montezuma. Judy was training horses on her family’s horse ranch by the time she was 11 years old and became a skilled rider and aspiring rodeo queen until the promise of medical school took her into a new direction. Memoir writers will particularly enjoy the way in which Judy has designed her beautiful book around the horses she has known and loved. www.judybeilvaughan.com
A sensitive, in-depth interview with Santa Fe poet, Wayne Lee, who reads from The Underside of Light as well as several evocative septets written during the closing months of his wife’s life and after her passing. Listeners who are the primary caregivers for a loved one will particularly resonate with Wayne’s words and experience. His wife, Alice Morse Lee, was also a gifted published poet and of particular note is their intimate collaborative collection, Twenty Poems from The Blue House. Wayne is currently offering poetry workshops and writing a memoir. www.wayneleepoet.com