A Storyteller Project from Stormfire Productions. Join us by the figurative hearth as host Lisette Alvarez spins modern folk tales and interviews fellow storytellers about their respective journeys. In a world where actual fireside folktales are few and far in-between, this is a chance to revive and review the importance of communal storytelling from ages past and its relevance today. This is a podcast with a unique monthly release cycle; a 5-day sprint to create a modern folk tale 4x a year ...
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Working People: A podcast by, for, and about the working class today (now in partnership with In These Times magazine and The Real News Network). Working People is a podcast about working-class lives in 21st-century America. In every episode, you'll hear interviews with workers from around the country, from all walks of life. We'll talk about their life stories, their jobs, politics, and families, their joys and hopes and frustrations. Overall, Working People aims to share and celebrate the ...
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Look for the Helpers: Organizing Relief Aid in Asheville, NC, After "Apocalyptic" Hurricane Helene (w/ Byron Ballard & Lori Freshwater)
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Over the past two weeks, people around the country have watched in horror as our neighbors and fellow workers have been battered by the successive disasters of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton. “After making landfall as a Category 4 hurricane on Sept. 26 and tearing through the Gulf Coast of Florida,” Adeel Hassan and Isabelle Taft write in Th…
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Cornell's Crackdown on Palestine Solidarity Protests Could Force Grad Student-Worker to Leave US (w/ Jawuanna McAllister & Jenna Marvin)
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The student encampment movement last school year turned institutions of higher education into flashpoints of struggle over Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, US support for it, and the right to speak out against it. This year, college and university campuses have become laboratories of repression where different administrative efforts to si…
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Microsoft AI Data Center Comes for Drought-Battered Mexican Town’s Water (w/ Diana Baptista)
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As the climate crisis intensifies, billions of poor and working people around the world are suffering from lack of regular (or any) access to clean water, but the dawn of “AI” is about to make the problem much worse. In their recent report for Context, “Forget jobs—AI is coming for your water,” Diana Baptista and Fintan McDonnell write, “Artificial…
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Two years ago, workers from several different Trader Joe’s grocery stores joined the wave of unionization efforts spreading across the country. Workers in Hadley, Massachusetts, made history in 2022 by not only becoming the first Trader Joe’s store to vote to unionize but also by opting to form an independent union, Trader Joe’s United (TJU). Howev…
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While Max was inside the Labor Notes conference this past April, attending panels and sharing space with intelligent, hard working organizers, Mel was wandering the conference grounds outside, meeting folks and talking about the joy of being a member of the working class as they sat in the grass and ate their lunches and talked with friends, old an…
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Seven unions demand end to US military aid to Israel (w/ George Waksmunski & Brandon Mancilla)
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The death toll in Gaza continues to climb, with conservative estimates putting the numbers of dead around 40,000, but a recent report in the British medical journal The Lancet estimates the actual death toll could be 186,000 or even higher—that’s roughly 8% of Gaza’s population. And with each passing day, the humanitarian crises unfolding in Gaza a…
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How can an island, only 90 miles from the U.S. southeastern coast, feel so far away? Lisette Alvarez guides you through their journey as the first person in their family to return to Cuba after over 60 years, all within the context of U.S.-Cuba geopolitical history. This 12-episode true story is released just in time for the anniversaries of two ma…
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In 2024, Working People officially crossed the 300 episode mark! Since we published our first episode back in 2018, the show has grown in ways we never could have imagined, and the world itself has changed in radical, hopeful, terrifying ways, the labor movement has undergone incredible changes, and we’ve done our best to document that change and t…
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What it Means to 'Walk the Walk': the NEA Staff Lockout (w/ Rowena Shurn and Ambereen Khan-Baker)
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Today we have an urgent and important conversation with members of the NEA Staff Organization, the union of staffers at the National Education Association, who have been locked out of their workplace by NEA management for the past four weeks. The NEA, representing over 3 million members, is the largest union in the country. Staffers working for the…
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From the East Palestine Derailment Disaster to the Toledo Water Crisis (w/ Mike Balonek & Chris Albright)
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From East Palestine, Ohio, to South Baltimore and beyond, we’ve been connecting you with residents living in the toxic wastelands left by private and government-run industry—ordinary working people who have been thrust into extraordinary fights for their lives. In the latest installment of our ongoing Sacrificed series, we go to Toledo, Ohio, a cit…
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Teamsters Members React to Sean O'Brien's RNC Speech (w/ Amber Mathwig, Tony, Chantelle, Rick Smith, Zoey Moretti Niebuhr, Jess Leigh, Kat, & Robert Conklin)
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On Monday, July 15, on Day 1 of the Republican National Convention, Sean O’Brien, general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, became the first Teamsters president ever to address the RNC. Invited by former president Trump, who is now officially the Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential election, O’Brien’s speech was no o…
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Fletcher aims for the future. CONTENT WARNING: Allusions towards violent direct action. Loud sounds/music at around the 8:30 minute mark. Thank you for listening! We will be taking a hiatus starting September 15th, so please stay tuned by subscribing to our newsletter and following us across social media. Please consider supporting Project Borderle…
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Dispatch from Labor Notes & Railroad Workers United Conferences (Chicago, 2024)
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Two months ago, from April 17-21, workers and labor organizers of all stripes convened in Chicago for the bi-annual Labor Notes conference, which overlapped with the Railroad Workers United convention. As the registration website rightly noted, “Labor Notes Conferences are the biggest gatherings of grassroots labor activists, union reformers, and a…
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"Safe Staffing Now!": Baltimore Nurses at Largest Catholic Health Network in US Fight On for First Contract (w/ Nicki Horvat)
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On the morning of Thursday, June 20, unionized nurses at Ascension St. Agnes Hospital in Baltimore held a rally outside the hospital to raise awareness of their efforts to secure a first contract and to show management that they’re not backing down from their core demands for safe staffing and an operational model that puts patients and patient car…
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In Brazil, the Climate Crisis Is Already Turning Working People into Climate Refugees (w/ Michael Fox)
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“Southern Brazil is facing its worst climate tragedy ever," Latin-America-based journalist Mike Fox wrote from Brazil for the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) in early May. "Unprecedented floods have impacted 1.4 million people and forced more than 160,000 people from their homes... The images are shocking. Downtown Porto Alegre, th…
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"CSX has got to go!" Industrially Polluted South Baltimore Residents March to "Evict" Rail Giant from Their Community
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On June 10, in the working-class community of Curtis Bay in South Baltimore, over 50 residents, activists, and supporters from around the city marched through the streets of Curtis Bay to hold CSX Transportation accountable for polluting their community, homes, and bodies with toxic coal dust. Even after an expansive scientific study co-sponsored b…
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Liz Oliva Fernández
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For the past six years on this show, we've talked to working people from across the United States, from virtually every walk of life, about their lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles. But today, we’re going to talk about what it’s like to live and work in a country that has been designated a political enemy of US empire, a country that sits only 90 m…
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A Veteran Longshoreman's View of the Baltimore Bridge Disaster (w/ John Blom & Marc Steiner)
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Nearly two months have passed since the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, and the city is still reeling from the disaster. The bridge collapse immediately rendered the Port of Baltimore inoperable, threatening hundreds of thousands of jobs, and billions in wages, business revenue, and state taxes. While channels into the port h…
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"South Baltimore is a sacrifice zone" (w/ David Jones, Angela Smothers, Carlos Sanchez, & Tiffany Thompson)
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“South Baltimore is a sacrifice zone,” Michael Middleton and Dr. Sacoby Wilson wrote in a guest commentary published in Maryland Matters this February. “The six communities that make up South Baltimore—Cherry Hill, Westport, Mt. Winans, Lakeland, Brooklyn, and Curtis Bay—rank in the top 3% of the state for environmental burden using a Maryland Depa…
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Vina Colley
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"Vina Colley was Erin Brockovich before Erin Brockovich," Kevin Williams wrote in a 2020 Belt Magazine article titled, "The Poisonous Legacy of Portsmouth’s Gaseous Diffusion Plant." Williams continues, "Colley has become an unlikely citizen-scientist, spending a lifetime researching and documenting PORTS and its sins... Colley was hired as an elec…
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Fletcher confronts the Fates. Landslide, a three-part series, is written and produced by Lisette Alvarez. The next part is coming soon. Check out Alpha 8 wherever you get your podcasts! You can support this latest experiment with the Storyteller Project. Join our weekly Friday creative coworking sessions on Discord and Twitch. Transcript…
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Gene Bruskin was born to a Jewish working-class family in South Philadelphia and has been a life-long social justice activist, union organizer, poet, and playwright. Since retiring from the labor movement, Gene wrote his first play in 2016, a musical comedy for and about work and workers called Pray For the Dead: A Musical Tale of Morgues, Moguls a…
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Justice for East Palestine Residents & Workers Conference in East Palestine
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On March 23, 2024, a coalition of around 80 people convened at the East Palestine Country Club at the first gathering called by the newly formed Justice for East Palestine Residents & Workers Coalition. Those in attendance included: East Palestine residents; railroad workers; residents of other “sacrifice zones" in Ohio, Maryland, California, and W…
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From Baltimore to East Palestine, This Is Unacceptable (w/ The Valley Labor Report & Maximillian Alvarez)
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24 hours after Max returned to Baltimore from East Palestine, Ohio, the shipping vessel Dali slammed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge, collapsing it into the Patapsco River. The catastrophic collision and collapse of the bridge claimed the lives of six immigrant, non-union construction workers who were working the night shift at the time, filling …
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The tale of a valley of master weavers, and the wall blessed by the fates to protect them -- until it didn't. Landslide, a three-part series, is written and produced by Lisette Alvarez. The next part is coming soon. You can support this latest experiment with the Storyteller Project. Join our weekly Friday creative coworking sessions on Discord and…
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Labor, Community, & Environmental Organizations Are Mobilizing to Get East Palestine Healthcare (w/ Justice for East Palestine Residents & Workers)
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This Saturday, March 23, unionists and labor leaders, environmental justice groups, community organizers, community members from other “sacrifice zones,” and supporters from around the country are coming to East Palestine to join residents as part of the newly formed Justice for East Palestine Residents and Workers coalition. The coalition has come…
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Brett Cross, Uzi's Dad
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Brett Cross is a small-town kid who grew up in Western Texas, among the oil fields, near Odessa. He worked in the oil fields, worked his way up to doing pipeline work, eventually moving to green energy work. He even became a foreman, working hard to provide for his family. And Brett was at work when he got the call from his wife Nikki that changed …
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This is an excerpt from our most recent bonus episode featuring Teddy Ostrow. To access the entire conversation, and numerous bonus episodes we have released throughout seven seasons of Working People, please visit our Patreon to unlock this content. The Upsurge was an invaluable show that documented two of the most pivotal labor union struggles in…
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Why Do Railroad Workers Keep Dying on the Job? (w/ Nick Wurst, Matt Weaver, Mark Burrows, & Ross Grooters)
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"Last Wednesday, a fellow rail worker was gravely injured on the job and lost his life," a Feb 6 email from Railroad Workers United reads. "Our brother Chris Wilson, who worked for Norfolk Southern, was critically injured in its Decatur rail yard Wednesday and died Thursday at Huntsville Hospital." Another email from Feb. 9 reads, "On January 15th,…
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One year ago, graduate student-workers at Johns Hopkins University overwhelmingly voted to unionize under the banner of Teachers and Researchers United (TRU-UE), which is affiliated with United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers. While workers had much to celebrate with their historic union election victory, bargaining a first contract with the…
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Baltimore's Co-Ops Show There's Another Way to Work (at the Baltimore Museum of Industry)
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Baltimore has become what many consider to be ground zero in the emerging “solidarity economy” and the formation of worker-owned, cooperatively run businesses. There’s something important going on here, and there’s a lot that we can all learn from our fellow workers who are in the cooperative space—people who are living, breathing proof that there’…
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From the creators of Kalila Stormfire's Economical Magick Services, Black Friday, and Tales From the Hearth comes a new modern audio folk tale--The Ortiz Twins Are Coming Home is a fantasy podcast about twins on the US/Mexico border as they reconnect with their indigenous roots and uncover forgotten family history. The Ortiz Twins is written by And…
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Workers at Homegrown Sustainable Sandwiches in the Seattle area voted overwhelmingly to unionize with UNITE HERE LOCAL 8 in late 2022, and they have been fighting for a first contract ever since. In fact, workers from two Homegrown stores have been on strike since late last fall in protest of the unfair termination of union leader Sydney Lankford, …
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East Palestine—1 Year After the Derailment
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Feb. 3, 2024, marks the one-year anniversary of the Norfolk Southern train derailment that changed life forever for the residents of East Palestine, Ohio, and the surrounding area. The derailment of 38 rail cars and the subsequent “controlled release” and burnoff of toxic vinyl chloride was one of the most catastrophic industrial accidents in our c…
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After Waging the Largest Healthcare Worker Strike in US History, Kaiser Workers Win Big (w/ Meg Niemi & Audrey Cardenas)
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From October 4-6 of this year, the US experienced the largest healthcare worker strike in our history, when over 75,000 workers with the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions went on a three-day strike against the healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente. Then, on October 13, after warning that more strikes could be coming if a deal wasn’t reached at the…
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Brazil's Radical Plan to Fight Slave-Like Working Conditions (w/ Marcos, John, & Vitor Filgueiras)
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Brazil's Radical Plan to Fight Slave-Like Working Conditions (w/ Marcos, John, & Vitor Filgueiras) In this special international episode, we get the chance to talk to folks in Brazil about the farmworkers who are being trapped in slave-like conditions, and about a truly radical new government program that is trying to break the cycle of enslavement…
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Please note: this audio contains material that might be disturbing for some audiences sensitive to loud noises and implied violence. Listen now to "The Tone" for the upcoming modern folk tale LANDSLIDE, which will premiere later this week. Sound and music sourced via a Creative Commons license at freesound.org. See and share the moodboard across ou…
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There once lived a young warrior named Fletcher, who lived in a village protected by a grand, old, woven wall. When his village is destroyed by a freak landslide, Fletcher goes off on a quest to confront those who failed to protect them from such a disaster–the fates themselves. Landslide, a modern audio folk tale, will premiere….mmm, early next we…
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Welcome to the Storyteller's Workshop! For day one of the Storyteller Project, Lisette Alvarez conducted a collective tarot reading to inspire a new modern folk tale. By next week, there will be a mini episode in this feed. Between now and then, however, you will get a mix of podcast episodes which include unedited workshopping, sample audio, and a…
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Chris & Jessica Albright
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It's been nearly 10 months since the derailment of a Norfolk Southern freight train and the subsequent “controlled release” and burnoff of toxic vinyl chloride changed life forever for the residents of East Palestine, Ohio. While the media, politicians, and the public have largely moved on, people living in and around East Palestine have been aband…
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"This Is McCarthyism All Over Again": Suppressing Unions' Free Speech Rights over Gaza (w/ Allie Goodman, Michael Letwin, & Dany Greene)
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With each passing day, more Israeli bombs are falling on Gaza, more bodies are being blown apart and buried under the rubble, over a million Palestinians have been displaced from their homes. Over the past month and a half, the world has borne witness to a genocidal military campaign to clear out Gaza once and for all, and every day, every hour, it…
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Back in August of 2022, we spoke with Matt Littrell, a picker at the Amazon warehouse in Campbellsville, Kentucky, and one of the lead organizers in an effort to unionize Amazon facilities in Kentucky. When we spoke with Matt, Amazon had just fired him in suspected retaliation for his organizing activities, citing "performance" issues. Since then, …
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More than 10,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's retaliatory assault on Gaza in the past month, including thousands of women, children, and elderly, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. The real number is likely much higher… we don’t know how many people, dead and alive, are under the rubble right now. But we do know that the …
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The Teamsters Picket Amazon's BWI5 Warehouse in Baltimore (w/ Deion Anthony Steppes, Cristina Duncan Evans, Taylor Boren, & Mike McGuire)
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On the evening of Wednesday, Nov. 8, members of the Teamsters union led a picket line march outside of Amazon’s BWI5 warehouse in Baltimore. Dozens of other union workers and members of the Baltimore community joined the demonstration, which was an extension of the ongoing Unfair Labor Practice strike by unionized Amazon drivers and dispatchers at …
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"Soldiers Are Everywhere, Settlers Are Everywhere, People Are Afraid to Leave Their Homes" (w/ Issa Amro)
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Every day the Palestinian civilian death toll is rising dramatically as Israel continues with its genocidal bombing and ground invasion of Gaza, and as settler and military violence towards Palestinians in the West Bank intensifies. "It's a closure, it's a curfew, in many places in the West Bank," Issa Amro says. "It's not normal life these days. S…
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Sherry Cothren (w/ Jeremiah Cothren)
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Over the past month, United Auto Workers have continued to ramp up their strike at the Big 3 auto companies, calling workers at more plants to hit the picket line. As Keith Brower Brown recently reported at Labor Notes, “Every Friday for the past four weeks, Big 3 CEOs have waited fearfully for UAW President Shawn Fain to announce which plants will…
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The derailment of a Norfolk Southern freight train in East Palestine , Ohio, on Feb. 3 of this year, and the subsequent “controlled release” and burnoff of toxic vinyl chloride, is one of the most catastrophic and devastating industrial accidents in our country’s history, and a catastrophe of equal or greater proportion could literally happen again…
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The myth of how we became storytelling animals. This special episode was made with the support of those who have already contributed to the 2023 Storytelling Crowdfund. All contributers receive a copy of "The Storyteller" paper, a prose research essay I wrote in 2016 on the global archetype of the Storyteller. All contributers for the Bardic Box an…
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UNLOCKED BONUS EPISODE - I Was in The House When the House Burned Down (w/ Vincent Bevins)
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The decade from 2010 to 2020 was one that saw more people around the world participating in protests than at any other point in human history. And yet, looking back, the results of so many of these mass protests, the societal changes that followed, were the opposite of what protestors were demanding. In his new book, If We Burn: The Mass Protest De…
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With moonlit adventures and witchy revelations, this episode brings on Diana Helmuth, author of new nonfiction memoir "The Witching Year: A memoir of Earnest Fumbling Through Modern Witchcraft" and award-winning "How to Suffer Outside: A Beginner's Guide to Hiking and Backpacking". Diana Helmuth is a nonfiction author. Before delving into writing, …
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