Mark Ostler
Mark Ostler joins the show to kick around comic books - specifically his work Ivar the Boxer and Waltzing Carpet Juliette. We also talked about Warning: Danger!
Mark Ostler is a comic book writer and publisher. In 2023, he wrapped up a 4 issue mini-series titled, “Waltzing Carpet Juliette” about the dangers of consumerism. In 2024, he began a new self-published comic book series titled, “Ivar The Boxer”.
Jim LaBelle
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.
"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."
Kathleen Stuart
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 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.
Ivana Yellowback
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’s most important roles and work is being an aunty, pipe carrier, lodge carrier, drum carrier and singer.
Mel and Teghan Hammond
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.
Website: www.melhammondbooks.com
Mel’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hamsandwichmel/
NYC Fringe Festival with Jude Treder-Wolff, Lauren O’Brien and Suzanne Bachner
Special Spring 2024 NYC Fringe Festival episode with three dynamic creators!
Page Stephenson
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."
M.J. Bassett
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!
Ben Tanzer
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!
Philip Barasch
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.
Nicholas Tamagna
Guest host Kinneret Ely interviews opera star Nicholas Tamagna
Nicholas 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.
Chimen Georgette Kouri
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
TJ McGowan
TJ McGowan aka The Everyday Bite is a Bronx based writer, poet, and spoken word artist who has performed all over the Tri-State. 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.
Olivia Britz-Wheat
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.
Riccelle and Chelsea of Baroque B*tches Podcast
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!!!
Elizabeth Coplan
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?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.
Allyson McCabe
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.
Katherine Yeske Taylor
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.
Kola Shippentower
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.
Katy Tessman
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.
Meghan Lamb
Meghan Lamb is the author of 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). She served as the Philip Roth Writer-in-Residence at Bucknell University, and teaches creative writing through the University of Chicago, Story Studio, and GrubStreet.
She is also the frontwoman of Kill Scenes, an 80s cinema-inspired band described as "a beguiling combination of The Cure, Depeche Mode, and Tangerine Dream fronted by an unholy conflation of Siouxsie Sioux, Kate Bush, and Diamanda Galás."
Kate Brody
Kate Brody lives in Los Angeles, California. Her work has previously appeared in Lit Hub, The Rumpus, Noema, and The Literary Review, among other publications. She holds an MFA from NYU.
Rabbit Hole is her debut novel, released January 2, 2024.
GLÜME
GLÜME is an art phenomenon. Whether she was plucked from the astral planes or the near-dream world she occupies a unique space in the heart.
Her album MAIN CHARACTER is a subtle and attractive dark-pop trance. HEAVEN makes you bounce as you slightly weep and pray your rosary.
Dream of your car floating in the clouds as you listen to THE QUEEN OF L.A.
Philosophy, artist-blue-balls, Marilyn Monroe, goddesses, dream-worlds, OnlyFans and the redirection of music revenue as a radical body-act are included in this Christmas present to you!
Stephen Pellnat
Stephen Pellnat "I have been making comics for as long as I can remember understanding the written language. I received my formal education at the School of Visual Arts in New York City from 2005 to 2009, graduating with a Bachelor’s of the Fine Arts.
I have self published comics for years, including Kitty of the Dead, Ma, Heaven and now, Upstate. I have been featured in a number of promotional campaigns in the northeast, including the tours of Klezwoods and Cocek Brass Band. I provided album artwork for Klezwoods’ Album Toy Monkey and Cocek Brass Band’s album Here Comes Shlomo. Upstate is my latest work, and the work I’m proudest of to date.”
Zora von Pavonine
A published poet, holder of a handful of intellectual property patents and a few degrees in the creative arts, Zora needles on towards creating smart, impassioned acts wrapped in costumes that speak to her tremendous love of fashion and design, reflective of her hip hop roots and the unmistakable dedication of a distance runner… It has been said that her sparkle can be seen from outer space; it has been rumored that one night in Zora’s audience will have you discovering confetti in all your places for a month on… with pasties so small, even the most veteran of show-goers blush, they come to see the tease and leave with an eyeful of feathers…
Zora was initially featured on SRTN Episode 10
Salo Panto
Salo Panto is: Joe Garwig, Max Doyle, Ed Beach, and David Kudelka
Since 2015, Salo Panto has been exploring and bending every corner of the rock genre. Rooted in psychedelia with a stage presence that will blow your hair back, commonly being described as “a sight to behold”. Their technical skill and original hooks play homage to the legends of rock while transforming the genre into something new entirely.
Salisha Old Bull
Salisha Old Bull (Salish/Crow) is an Indigenous artist based in Montana. She creates a diverse array of art genres but has an affinity to beadwork.
“My overall vision is to create contemporary art, combining traditional, flat-stitch, two-needle, beadwork, with current photography and photo editing techniques. I want to capture the past, the present, and the significance of places that hold deep-seeded history for the Bitterroot Salish. I hope to motivate people to recapture knowledge that is almost gone and revive it by passing it onto younger generations.”
Suziey Block is a Scream Queen
Welcome back Suziey! Suziey was last featured on SRTN Episode 194!
Recorded in a Russian cemetery in Portland, Oregon. Suziey Block kills it in the found footage insta-classic Horror in the High Desert. Her performance in ‘Entrance’ is a haunting tour-de-force.
And you heard it here - Suziey Block is the official SRTN podcast SCREAM QUEEN (statue in development) . . .
And we had some good ol' fashioned horror talk and we mutually developed a LABOR screed.
Pete Dryden
Pete Dryden is a portrait photographer based in Oregon.
When he’s not deconstructing the world of photography he’s plotting ways to enter into it.
Lori Fetrick (Chillin' with ICE)
Something (rather than nothing) Podcast is pleased to present Lori Fetrick who is also known as ICE from American Gladiators!
She stars in the Netflix Documentary 'Muscles & Mayhem: An Unauthorized Story of American Gladiators.'
Lori does a great podcast called "Chillin' with Ice" so you can go on a Gladiator nostalgia stroll but also learn so much from Lori in ways of living, eating, being yourself, entertaining, loving art and dealing with your shit.
Pieta Brown
The daughter of two preacher’s kids, Pieta Brown’s early upbringing in Iowa was in a rural outpost with no furnace, running water, or TV. There, she was exposed to traditional and rural folk music through her father, Greg Brown, the now beloved Midwestern folk singer.
Emerging from a disjointed and distinctly 'bohemian' upbringing, Pieta began performing live and making independent recordings soon after teaching herself how to play guitar. "I grew up around a lot of musicians and artists living on the fringe, and have always felt most at home among them," Pieta says.
Cristina Lumague (Espooky Tales)
Cristina Lumague is a freelance podcast producer, editor and the host of Espooky Tales, Historias Unknown and Novelas Con Cafecito.
Enjoy this SRTN Halloween Special! Cristina and Ken talk about spooky tales, horror movies, telenovelas, podcasting, art y mas . . .
Charles Mulford
Charles Mulford’s sculptures explore the complex emotions surrounding anxiety through the lens of humor. Cartoon figures, 3D-modeled objects, and scans of human heads act as vehicles for theatrical narratives. Mired in tragic circumstances, the characters express their feelings about illness and death. Exaggerate scenes capture a sense of unease, reflecting the stress and vulnerability of anxiety. The result is a visual representation of a tortuous and sometimes humorous world.
Nick of SKELETON BOY
Host Ken Volante was watching some 'Dark Souls' gameplay and heard some rocking music down at the Albany, Oregon skatepark. He got to meet Nick of Skeleton Boy and here we bring you some of the sounds from the Willamette Valley. Thanks Nick for the great chat!
Carol Butler
Carol Butler is a ballpoint illustrator based in Boise Idaho, where she works seasonally as an organic farmer.
An avid cyclist, and Norm Macdonald fan. She spends her time being a day dreaming degenerate while getting lost in the throws of a good science fiction novel.
Featuring special guest host Sarah Romano-Diehl
Angel Marcloid (Fire-Toolz)
Producer / composer / multi-instrumentalist Angel Marcloid records music under the moniker Fire-Toolz. Though Marcloid’s output emerges in a litany of distinct aliases and projects — from the jazz fusion / new age of Nonlocal Forecast to the vaporous nostalgia of MindSpring Memories — the Fire-Toolz catalog remains the central focus of the prolific artist’s musical universe and a home for Marcloid’s most ambitious and combinatory work.
Fire-Toolz Website
Jadon Allen
Jadon Allen is the founder of Guilt! or guiltpdx, a streetwear and street art company based out of Portland, Oregon with the main goal of pushing creative boundaries.
Guilt! produces a plethora of goods including unique clothing, colorful artworks, photography, and videography sold both online and in local Portland stores. More work can be found @guiltpdx on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
elle nash
Elle Nash is the author of the short story collection Nudes (SF/LD Books), novels Gag Reflex (Clash Books) and Animals Eat Each Other (Dzanc Books), which was featured in the 2018 June Reading Room of O - The Oprah Magazine and hailed by Publishers Weekly as a ‘complex, impressive exploration of obsession and desire.' Her new novel, Deliver Me (Unnamed Press) was released October 2023. Her work appears in Guernica, BOMB, The Nervous Breakdown, Literary Hub, The Fanzine, Volume 1 Brooklyn, New York Tyrant and elsewhere. She is a founding editor of Witch Craft Magazine and has edited fiction at both Hobart Pulp and Expat Literary Journal.
Anna May
Alternative tragic Americana, invocations for peace & judgment reshaping with bleeding heart stream of consciousness poems. Anna's music honors the nomadic spirit with memory, meditation & fresh interpretations of folk music and jazz influence. She honors a hope to enhance connection, humility, healing, and joy among people in the process of parting with typical genre rules. As a yogi, pianist, teacher & poet, she masterfully blends all of her influences into her songwriting.
Sarah Romano-Diehl
Sarah Romano Diehl is a comic artist based in Seattle, WA. Her work is published in Seattle Magazine, The Stranger, and Scarff Comics Newspaper. Sarah has been publishing her minicomics and collabing with other comix artists and writers for around ten years.
She loves being outside and near water.
Caytha Jentis and Paul Adams
Over to the NYC to get exclusive coverage of the plays Sex Work, Sex Play by Caytha Jentis and Doris Day: My Secret Love by Paul Adams!
Caytha Jentis is a former literary agent. She has written, produced and directed a number of award-winning features including Bad Parents, And Then Came Love, and The One.
Paul Adams founded Emerging Artists Theatre in 1993 and has been the Artistic Director for the life of the company. During this time, he has helped showcase hundreds of new works (plays, solo-shows, musicals & dance pieces) for off and off-off Broadway.
Nataša Babič
Nataša Babič is a New York actress, originally from Ljubljana, Slovenia. Natasa studied musical theater at the Performing Arts Studios Vienna. She performed Off and Off Off Broadway for many years. Her first Off Broadway role was Sandra/Sissy a split personality character in Anne L. Thompson Scretching’s "The Sanctuary" at the American Theater Of Actors. Nataša joined the Hallmark Movie Channel family in their new production The Dancing Detective, A Deadly Tango. She is playing a lead supporting role of Mary Aston. The movie premiered on Hallmark in June 2023.
Sadie Dupuis (Speedy Ortiz)
Dupuis chats about art, labor, music, meaning, poetry and Speedy Ortiz's 'Rabbit Rabbit" record release out this very same day! Features the tracks "Scabs" and "Ranch v Ranch."
“Rabbit rabbit” is a superstitious incantation repeated on the first of each month to bring good fortune—a belief practiced by Sadie Dupuis, the guitarist, singer and songwriter of the Philadelphia rock quartet Speedy Ortiz.
Rick Staggenborg
Rick is a retired psychiatrist who specialized in PTSD and worked in community psychiatry before finishing his career at the VA, retiring in 2010.
Rick advocates for universal health care as a member of Physicians for a National Health Program and by serving in multiple roles with Health Care for All Oregon and is chair of the Faith Caucus. Rick is also an Army veteran and is active in the antiwar movement as the President of the Linus Pauling Chapter of Veterans For Peace.
Charles Payne
Charles Payne is a Madison transplant, a certified teacher, and self-taught social artist, originally from Michigan. Payne is a Shop One Educator/Artist Residency Finalist and a 2022 TMT New Play Development Playwright. Their play ‘Da Classroom Ain’t Enuf’ was an American Players Theatre New Voices: Creating the Classics of Tomorrow semi-finalist and a Wisconsin Wrights 2022 New Play Development project finalist.
Ainsley Costello
In a world dominated by overnight internet sensations and one-hit-wonders, emerging artist Ainsley Costello has her eyes set on creating a legacy that stands the test of time. A power house voice in the vain of Haley Williams or Pink, Ainsley's lyrics can also be delicately delivered. Costello's heartfelt and personal approach to lyricism translates into an easily digestible and heartwarming listening experience.
Keddie's Resort
Born in the sterile hills of Happy Valley Keddies Resort is breathing life into the bloated carcass of the rock world. With an ever changing sound they continue to find a unique position in the current musical landscape. Maintaining a foundation of punchy riffs, temple throbbing breakdowns and melodic intricacy, they have set themselves on a continuous crash course for musical explosion.
Keddies Resort fans lodge here Insta
Joe Maldonado
Joe Maldonado is a poet and mental health professional, author of the poetry collections Subterranean Summer and Skeleton American. His work has also appeared in numerous anthologies, including Remembering Jack Kerouac (National Beat Poetry Foundation, 2022). He served on the council of the Transformative Language Arts Network from 2017-2020 and hosts monthly open mics in New York.. You can follow him on social media, @joemaldonado81
Dakota Noot
SRTN is happy to have THE Dakota Noot back on the show!
Dakota Noot is a Los Angeles-based artist and curator. He uses drawings, paintings, and installations to create animal-human hybrids that explore rural yet fantastical, queer identities.
Lilian Sue
Talking storytelling, music, publishing, PR, art and philosophy with Lilian Sue
As a PR coach and publicist, Lilian Sue is in the storytelling and relationship building business. She empowers creative entrepreneurs to push past limiting beliefs and gain the confidence to learn how to build strong PR and marketing mindsets and learn how to build and launch successful PR campaigns.
Cissi Efraimsson
Wag your tail to this one! Listen thru for the addicting pleasure of the song "WAG IT!"
Cissi Efraimsson is a Swedish LA-based artist and director working in the fields of stop motion animation, sculpture, painting and music. Efraimsson graduated the MFA program in Experimental Animation at the California Institute of the Arts in May 2022. She received a BFA in Fine Arts from the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm in 2018.
Her musical output is vast, and Efraimsson currently sings and drums in punk-pop trio Vulkano, having previously drummed in Those Dancing Days.
Nick Malster of Fountain App
Nick Malster is the co-founder of Fountain, a podcast app that helps creators get discovered, build a community and get paid for their work.
This episode was recorded between Albany, Oregon and London, England. We talk Podcasting 2.0, the movement, bitcoin, sats, value for value (v4v), direct support for podcasts and musical artists, art, creativity, the Fountain app and the podcasting industry at present.
Blair Borax - Live at Warbling Creek Studios
Recording artist Blair Borax returns with a touching live SRTN set in Eugene, Oregon. This episode is guest hosted by the lovely Jenny Jo Peterson and features four Borax tracks: Tender Lately, Wink or Worse, Call me Lazy, Like the Weather.
After releasing her debut album “Keep Walking” in June 2022, she is working on her sophomore record, “Tender Lately” and plans to release it in Fall 2023.
Meruzh Mazmanyan
Meruzhan Mazmanyan is an Armenian-American artist from the Portland, Oregon Metro area.
In a variety of mediums, Meruzhan uses his artwork as a way to send a message; from political propaganda posters, to sci-fi comics, to still life paintings. He feels that the purpose of art is to make a statement, and he makes that clear with pieces commenting on the American dream, consumerism, genocide, and more.
Fantasy in Terms of Liberation
Helming the 'Fantasy in Terms of Liberation' project is multi-disciplinary artist Julienne Baptiste, aka PCP, and director and artist Christopher Diana-Peebles. Hailing from Ocean City, MD.
Baptiste has called Portland, Oregon home since 2015. Her background includes a focus on dance, theater and music, which all come into play throughout the film.
Maya MacGregor
Maya MacGregor is an author, singer, and artist based in Glasgow, Scotland. A fluent Gaelic speaker, Maya is active in many community activities in Gaelic music as well as writing contemporary YA and adult fiction (as Emmie Mears and M Evan MacGriogair). Maya has a degree in history and is passionate about writing the stories for teens they wish had existed when they were younger and fills them with the type of people who have always populated their world. Their pronouns are they/them.
Sara Hardin
New Orleans-based visual artist and art educator, Sara Hardin creates paintings that explore the connection between place and memory. She synthesizes collage, painting, and digital media to investigate this relationship. Pulling from both personal and collective recollections, she brings awareness of the space and the unique intricacies of the human experience; the ticks, the quirks, and the machinations of everyday life. Her work plays with the unique characteristics and culture of New Orleans, her hometown. Sara enjoys investigating new places and learning about the people that occupy that space. Her inspiration comes from her surroundings, and she captures the beauty in her everyday world as a crucial element of her art. She then takes that beauty and builds a collaged space, filled to the brim with memory and ritual. Sara’s work is a cacophony of recollection, color, expressive brush strokes, and the enigmatic nature of our lived experiences.
Swamp Thing Rather Than Nothing
Host Ken Volante corrals most tendrils of this wonderful panel to: explore the brilliance and radical edge of Alan Moore; the connection of Heather Locklear's foot and Midsommar; The Swamp Thing DC movie Universe speculated upon; the Wes Craven film (1982) dismantled and apprehended; the omnipresent threat to women in the films; Kudzu vine Swamp Thing biology theory; the (in)humanity of Alec Holland; the alien-transcendence of orchids; mental health, loneliness and alienation; and, so you know, SWAMP THING in a JEEP - this actually occurs in The Return of The Swamp Thing
Dysgenia
"How much can you you say without words?" That's the question these Portland-based musical veterans seek to explore with their boundary-dissolving instrumental psych/prog/metal outfit Dysgenia.
Dysgenia have distilled their own unique brand of controlled musical chaos, equal parts head, heart, and gut.
Bex Carlos (Tu Tía Bruja)
"In the Dumpster Fire year that was 2020, Tu Tía Bruja was born. Tu Tía Bruja is a podcast that focuses on conversations about witchcraft, ghosts, the occult, true crime, anti-racism, and the abnormal. Recorded mostly in English with episodes also available in Spanish.
Jayne Karma Lamo
Jayne Karma Lamo is a neurodivergent multi-instrumentalist, performer, recording artist and producer from Salmo, BC. Jayne creates dreamy, post-grunge alt-rock, drawing from multiple self produced albums worth of original material. Jayne plays with a full band, or is available for solo shows doing live looping or acoustic material. Audiences can expect to be captivated by her otherworldly vocals, moody melodies, and her thought provoking, emotionally charged lyrical content! As a space holder, Jayne also creates deeply relaxing and nourishing soundscapes and very unique immersive sonic journeys for small or large groups.
Florence Williams
Florence Williams is a journalist, author, and podcaster. She is a contributing editor at Outside Magazine and a freelance writer for the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, The New York Review of Books and numerous other publications.
R.W.W. Greene
R.W.W. Greene is a New Hampshire USA writer with an MA in Fine Arts, which he exorcises in dive bars and coffee shops. He is a frequent panelist at the Boskone Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention in Boston, and his work has been in Stupefying Stories, Daily Science Fiction, New Myths, and Jersey Devil Press, among others. Greene is a past board member of the New Hampshire Writers’ Project. He keeps bees, collects typewriters, and lives with writer/artist spouse Brenda and two cats. He has published three books: The Light Years, Twenty-Five to Life, and Mercury Rising, all with Angry Robot Books.
Sick Town Roller Derby
ROLLER DERBY EPISODE! SRTN 202 drops you onto Oregon State University parquet with the skaters of Sick Town Roller Derby (Albany and Corvallis, Oregon)
Immerse yourself in the sounds and story of fighting for survival, being yourself, getting out your angst, sounding your barbaric yalp and having fun!
Karyn Ann
Described as a “combination of Patty Griffin grit and Amy Winehouse grace” by American Songwriter, Portland-based Soul/Americana singer-songwriter Karyn Ann has been charming audiences across the US with her powerful vocals and emotive lyricism. Her debut album Into the Depths (2015) and subsequent follow-up Be Loud (2018) garnered critical acclaim and radio play, leading this once geologist now turned-road musician to gain a steady following along the West Coast and beyond.
Talkin' Baseball with Ellen Adair
Ellen Adair is a regular analyst on MLB Network's "Off Base," and has also appeared on "MLB Now," "Hot Stove" and "MLB Central."
Ellen is a multi-talented artist, actor, writer and baseball brain.
Ellen is the co-host of the podcast "Take Me In to the Ballgame," on the Underdog Sports Network.
Blair Bathory
Blair Bathory has been creating works of horror for many years. She began her career as maestro of the macabre when she was just 19-years-old. In May of 2015, Blair Bathory rose from the grave and lit the candles inside FEAR HAUS. Once a week The Lady of the Haus introduces her Victims to one new short horror film. Showcasing independent directors from all over the world, an audience quickly grew.
Currently, she is the new host for the widely successful podcast Something Scary, which boasts over 3 million fans.
Craig Randall
Craig Randall is a poet, author, and teacher who lives in beautiful Corvallis, OR with his wife, children, two cats and dog. A passionate advocate for mental-health, his body of work is a byproduct of his own battles with anxiety and depression and has served as a vehicle for empathy, healing, and connection. His works include two novels, The Doom that Came to Astoria, and The Dreams in the Pearl House (the first two books in The Northwest Trilogy) and two collections of poetry, To Chase the Sun, and Among the Wildflowers. A third novel and two more collections of poetry are coming soon.
Leanna Renee Hieber
Leanna Renee Hieber is an actress, playwright, ghost tour guide and the award-winning, bestselling author of over fourteen Gothic, Gaslamp Fantasy, Supernatural Suspense and Non-Fiction books for adults and teens with publishers such as Tor, Sourcebooks and Kensington Books. A Haunted History of Invisible Women: True Stories of America's Ghosts, co-authored with Andrea Janes, is a 2022 Bram Stoker Award finalist for "Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction". The book explores the intersection of women's history and ghost stories.
Em Grebner-Gaddis
Em Grebner-Gaddis is a self-professed plant nerd with a love of history and story-telling. She started Rooted to share her passion for plants, and as many cursed history facts as she can.
Rooted is a weekly podcast diving into the tall tales & true stories of plants. If you like folklore, history, plant facts, and terrible puns, you're going to dig this show.
Suziey Block
Suzanne (Suziey) Block was born in Fenton, Michigan. She graduated from Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan where she studied film/video production and theater. Suziey made her film debut in a small scene in Michael Bay's The Island before moving to Los Angeles, California.
Ryan Brosmer
Ryan Brosmer is a cartoonist and illustrator who lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia with his wife, two dogs, and four cats. He aims to create stories that meet at the intersection of classic Saturday morning cartoons and newspaper comics. Ryan has been creating comics all his life except for a brief period between ages 10 and 32.
Alise Versella
Alise Versella is a twice Pushcart nominated contributing writer for Rebelle Society and the author of the full length poetry collection When Wolves Become Birds (Golden Dragonfly Press 2021). Her chapbook Maenads of the 21st Century is due out with dancing girl press and her collection A Psalm for the Weary is out this April 2023 with Alien Buddha Press. She has been widely published in various magazine and journals as well as long listed for Palette Poetry's 2021 Sappho Prize and a nomination for Best of the Net.
Victoria Astuto & Matthew Kyle Levine
Victoria Astuto is an actress, musician, and educator based in New York. She is most known for her roles in Some Time Soon and Trusted Hands. In addition to acting, she also plays Clarinet with the Brooklyn Wind Symphony and is a Band Director in the Hudson Valley.
Matthew Kyle Levine is a filmmaker 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.
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Lauren Bright Pacheco is 3-time Emmy Award-winning Producer, Podcast Host, Media Writer and Storyteller. You should know her spellbinding work on:
Happy Face Presents
Murder in Oregon
The Murders at White House Farm
Murder in Illinois
And as the producer of:
Speed of Sound with Steve Greenberg
Wholly Human with LeAnn Rimes.
Chloe Niclas
Chloe Niclas is an illustrator from Baltimore, MD. She is fascinated by the unexplainable and bizarre aspects of the world, often executing the otherworldly and impossible to feel within reach of existence. Her work has been recognized by American Illustration and the Art Director’s Club, and has appeared in The New York Times, Harper's Magazine, Politico Europe, and others.
Susan Tomorrow
Susan Tomorrow is a film programmer from Austin Texas, specializing in cult, horror, and Golden Age Hollywood cinema.
“As Co-Owner/Programmer of the Clinton Street Theater I am thrilled to be helping to bring back that William Castle MAGIC.”
Lauren Redniss
Lauren Redniss is an artist, author, and the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant." Her books include Radioactive, a finalist for the National Book Award, Thunder & Lightning, winner of the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award, and Oak Flat: A Fight for Sacred Land in the American West, called "astonishing" and "virtuosic" by the New York Times. She has been a Guggenheim fellow, a fellow at the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars & Writers, the New America Foundation, and Artist-in-Residence at the American Museum of Natural History. She teaches at the Parsons School of Design in New York City
Michael Conley
Michael Conley writes murder ballads, jukebox romances, and love songs in between.
Conley was in from Nashville and the SRTN hosted a magical set + interview from Warbling Creek Studios in Eugene, OR. This is something special.
Melissa Oliveri
Melissa Oliveri has been an artist her entire life. As an only child, she would spend hours entertaining herself by writing and illustrating stories, playing music, drawing, writing plays, making puppets and other crafts. This has translated into adulthood in the form of one person wearing many creative hats.
Sascha Stronach
Sascha Stronach (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Huirapa Rūnaka Ki Puketeraki) is an author based in Pōneke, Aotearoa.
His debut novel The Dawnhounds is a mind-bending fungal murder mystery described as 'Discworld Elysium'. If you encounter Sascha Stronach in the woods, shout and wave your arms to seem to bigger – this will intimidate the author.
Justin C.M. Brown
Justin C.M. Brown is a visual artist, musician, writer, cook, and student in the Sociology Department at UCLA.He was born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina and currently calls Los Angeles home.
Most recently, he donated 3 pieces of his art to his alma mater, Santa Monica College, where they are on display in the library.He is also currently in Part XII of his year-long artistic effort "Inspired By True Events".
Zainab Imran
Zainab Imran is a poet, tutor, zine-maker and English Literature student of British Pakistani heritage based in Manchester, England. She writes on a multitude of racial and queer issues, with a particular focus on ethnic diaspora and the hidden stories of women in the colonial struggle. They currently run the poetry collective, 'Poets for Partition'.
This episode is a typical Iliad, poetry, Manchester, Industrial Revolution, Marx, History, What is Art?, Kirchner type of episode.
Corinne Halbert
Corinne Halbert is a psychedelic horror artist with an extensive book collection. Her work is heavily influenced by an avid obsession with 1970s cult films and vintage comics. She's the creator of Acid Nun.
Unedited production note from host Ken Volante “Whoa. What a ride. Zines, horror movies, found footage, dealing with tough things, Steven Seagal, old magazines, Electric Wizard, ACID NUN and more."
Daniel Kern
Daniel Kern means so much to me and my learning. We met at Marquette University and he is responsible for my deeper interest in quantum physics, cosmology, Jesus Christ, and deeply humane ways of looking at philosophical questions.
We talk about his excellent book ‘A Reasonable Christian Faith.’ I told Dan about the surreal aspect of hearing his ‘voice’ in his book and feeling like he was chatting with me as l read it. Isn’t that grand?
T Edward Bak
T Edward Bak is a cartoonist and illustrator exploring the crossroads of culture and the natural environment.
We talked about art, service industry work, Alaska, graphic novels, Buddhism, Shunryu Suzuki, energy, ecology Saint Nagarjuna, Thomas Merton, Jack Kerouac and more . . .
Nick Friesen
Illustrator Nicholas Friesen lives in Winnipeg, Canada with his wife and dog. He likes drawing sad robots, people wearing headphones, and robots wearing headphones.
Susan Carr
Thick layers of oil paint encrust the canvases of Cape Cod-based painter Susan Carr, which reach out into the third dimension like small sculptural objects. Looking back toward artists like Phillip Guston, Willem De Kooning, and Robert Ryman, Carr works by applying paint to the canvas with a brush or trowel, working quickly (wet on wet) and determining the composition as she goes along. Though the works are abstract, shapes, symbols, or symbolic colors often emerge to elicit a reaction from the viewer, or more simply to guide the eye across the canvas.
The works are meditations on musicality and the rhythms of language. Carr has said: “I write poetry so you could say, my paintings are poems without words. Poems dripping in color."
B.L. Blanchard
'I am originally from Sault Ste. Marie in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, but I have lived in California for so long that I can no longer handle cold weather.
I am an author, a mother, and an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, a federally-recognized tribe.
Hayley Lynn
Organically gripping and raw, Hayley Lynn’s sultry timbres extend through the various depths of her vocal range as she is soft-spoken but packs a punch when her lyrical motifs drop.
Breanna Cee Martins
"We're all living in a haunted house, and we're all being haunted by it."
Breanna Cee Martins paints the mirage of an America that never existed, for people like her and entire swaths of the population of this country. The artist’s watercolor paintings fall away from the viewer like a half-remembered dream; images of ghostly and phantom children, coming together to explode in kaleidoscopic colors.
faetooth
faetooth possesses the ability to bewitch listeners through trance-inducing riffs, alluring melodies, and rich lyricism that ranges from mysterious to diaristic. faetooth’s music is about the nature of the self, the natural world, and all of its enchanting mysteries.
Brooke McCarthy
How to be an Ethical Slut is the award-winning solo by Brooke McCarthy. Experience the ride of your life as an unethical slut penetrates lies, STDs, triads, orgies, and love in her musical journey to becoming an Ethical Slut.
Rebecca Mills
Rebecca Mills is an artist and arts professional who has independently curated exhibits, facilitated events, wrote a successful one act play, and is a creative writer as well. She is an activist for cow protection, veganism, and environmental preservation / restoration.
Black Belt Eagle Scout (Katherine Paul)
This land runs through Katherine Paul’s blood. And it called to her. In dreams she saw the river, her ancestors, and her home. When the land calls, you listen. And KP found herself far from her ancestral lands during a time of collective trauma, when the world was wounded and in need of healing. In 2020 she made the journey from Portland back to the Skagit River, back to the cedar trees that stand tall and shrouded in fog, back to the tide flats and the mountains, back to Swinomish.
The Land, The Water, The Sky is a celebration of lineage and strength.
Ken Volante & Peter Bauer
Show creators Ken Volante (Creator and Host) and Peter Bauer (Editor and Producer) have a fun conversation that will let you know what THINGS you will see and hear in 2023!
We hope you enjoy this conversation and that some of the bigger ideas inspire you in your ART and LIFE.
Jakub Ferencik
SRTN's visiting Philosopher, Jakub Ferencik is back! We first heard from Jakub Ferencik in Episode 60. Then Jakub wrote another book (!) entitled Beyond Reason: Why We Fail at Understanding Each Other.
For this episode, Ferencik helps engage complicated topics such as censorhsip, hate speech, and free speech with attention to the complicated engine of modern social media.
Share Nova
Shara Nova has released five albums under the moniker My Brightest Diamond and has composed works for The Crossing, Conspirare, Cantus Domus, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Roomful of Teeth, many community choirs, as well as yMusic, Brooklyn Rider, violist Nadia Sirota, Aarhus Symfoni, North Carolina Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, American Composers Orchestra and the BBC Concert Orchestra, among others.
She has collaborated with Matthew Barney, The Decemberists, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Sufjan Stevens, David Byrne, Laurie Anderson, and many others.
Blair Borax
After releasing her first EP ‘everything is light work’ in May 2021, Blair Borax released her debut full-length album “Keep Walking” in June 2022.
“Keep Walking” will take you on an emotional journey of moving forward ~with your head held high~ beyond trauma and heartache.
It is the perfect companion to help you keep walking too.
New single 'Delight Me' out on December 9, 2022.
Taubnernaut
Taubnernaut was formed several months before the first pandemic lockdown with the intention of creating a power trio with the improvisational intensity of Jimi Hendrix and the darkness and heaviness of Black Sabbath. In the end, what you have is heavy psych with a variety of influences and always a hunger for improvisation.
Shea Glasheen and Matthew Kyle Levine
Shea Glasheen is an innovative, musical craftsman from Long Island. His artistic work includes sound design and film production as well as musical work with CRONIES and The Real Codington Factory
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”.
Elyse Kelly and Her Neon Zoo
Elyse Kelly is an award-winning director based in Washington DC. Her strength and passion is storytelling through an animated lens, and leading teams of world-class artists to create content that entertains, challenges and changes the hearts and minds of audiences. Elyse runs a full-service animation studio, Neon Zoo, that specializes in content for documentaries, brands, and NGOs.
Elyse Kelly has over 15 years of experience in animation and film, working for clients such as Netflix, the ACLU, The Atlantic, Sesame Workshop, Sony Music, the United Nations Foundation, and Disney Research. Her films have won awards and been exhibited in festivals worldwide, including Sundance, Tribeca, Annecy, Zagreb, and OIAF.
Kenneth Nicholson
Born in Latrobe Pennsylvania, Kenneth Nicholson received his AFA from Westmoreland County Community College in 2010, BFA from Seton Hill University in 2014, and MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2016. He currently teaches as an adjunct instructor at University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, Seton Hill University, and Westmoreland County Community College. His work has been exhibited in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Ohio, Washington DC, New Jersey, and New York.
Sammy Westervelt
Sammy Westervelt of the Death Valley Girls and Egg Drop Soup is back on the show following her Portland streetcast (Episode 155)! "I feel as though I'm a conscious being, and I'm almost certain that I'm observing things around me, and those things are somethings thinging."
Robyn Tsinnajinnie
Enjoy this wonderful conversation with the amazing painter and artist Robyn Tsinnajinnie. Robyn is a Native artist based in the New Mexico.
Robyn and I spoke about the Southwest, representations of Indigeneity, native shows & art & fashion, philosophy, color and Art School, and so much more! Her paintings are to be adored and loved.
Jonathan Case
I’m Jonathan Case - a cartoonist from the great Pacific Northwest. I love to make art, to write stories, and to go on adventures with loved ones - especially if there’s a hammock involved. Daddy’s sleepy.
In addition to comics I paint murals, create book covers, and illustrate for print. You can find some of that up on walls around Portland, Oregon (our current home base).
Jeri Shepherd
While Jeri Shepherd is new to the world of fiction, the author behind the Fault Lines Series has been in the writing industry for decades in playwriting, children's books, sportswriting, biography, leadership, ministry, and more. She wrote under the name Reji Laberje as a solo author and as a co-author alongside celebrities, athletes, and leaders of industry.
Marc J Palm
Marc J Palm is an artist you definitely need to know. He is an Eisner Award nominated cartoonist with Mad Magazine. He makes amazing ART. He is the self-publisher of The Fang, Punch to Kill, Dune mini comics and Intruder comix newspaper.
Listen here for a great conversation with Marc as we cover comix, music, life, bananafishbones (jk), the universe and everything.
Susie deVille
Susie deVille is on a mission to show entrepreneurs the power of trusting themselves. Work lighter while making higher profits. Eliminate self-doubt. To stop trying to overachieve one’s way into a sense of self, but rather lean into the surprising power of innate creativity. Her new book, Buoyant: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Becoming Wildly Successful, Creative, and Free, shows you how.
Death Valley Girls (Portland Streetcast)
A delirious time with Bonnie Bloomgarden and Sammy Westervelt of the Death Valley Girls. Stay on after the fun chat for the exclusive live cut of Abre Camino
Your day will be made more smiley by this experience.
Holly is Wildness By Design
I was visiting the ocean. The ocean always transforms me. I went to the market and faire. There I saw such fantastickal ART. I saw animal-people and people-animals-both. They were all the creations of someone named Holly who is Wildness by Design.So, Something (rather than nothing) is happy to present Holly!
Pamela Valfer
Pamela Valfer still has my mind reeling on questions of space, time, art, philosophy and history. Check this episode out. Bonus: a lovely Kitty Craft song at the end.
Valfer's statement: "In my creative work I am interested in the politics of Space. I use a multidisciplinary approach (performance, installation, video and drawing) to reveal constructions of post-truth and our unconscious participation in mediated spaces. I actively draw upon historical moments to allow the viewer to unlock historical ideas, conflate them with similar political propositions being propagated today, and question their own role within these systems."
Saroya Tinker
Saroya Tinker is currently a professional women's ice hockey player for the PHF's Toronto Six. She previously graduated from Yale University with her Bachelors of Arts in The History of Science, Medicine and Public Health. In addition to her studies she played on the Yale Varsity Women's Ice Hockey team. Since graduating, Saroya has found a passion for educating others and using her social media platforms to encourage and provide resources for others. By doing so, Saroya has decided to provide a mentorship program for young women of color.
She feels confident in her abilities to educate and provide a positive role model-like figure for our worlds up and coming BIPOC women.