Welcome to the World of Stories podcast! This is a biweekly show hosted by Hudson Lin and Margrit Talpalaru. Join us as we discover diverse stories the world over.

Transcript

Margrit  00:00

Welcome to World of Stories. I'm Margrit.

 

Lin  00:03

I'm Lin. And we're here to talk about diversity and storytelling.

 

Margrit  00:06

This is our first episode!

 

Lin  00:08

It is! And we should probably introduce ourselves. I'm Hudson Lin and I write romance novels with queer characters from all across the LGBTQ spectrum. A lot of my characters are Asian, because I am Asian. And so it's important to me to include that kind of representation in my writing. A little bit about my background is that I grew up in Toronto with very conservative immigrant parents. So I always felt like I was straddling two very different cultures as a kid. Being from a Chinese family and also being Canadian, I was sometimes both and sometimes felt like neither. So that kind of tension and dichotomy is something I try to bring to my writing.

 

Margrit  00:55

And I'm Margrit Tapalaru, and I dare you to say that three times fast. I'm a writer. I'm a professor, a translator and a parent. And in my ample spare time, I'm an avid but slow reader. What I'm looking for most in those moments are stories that reflect my world, rich with cultures and wide with  perspective. As an immigrant and a queer person who's always felt on the outside looking in, I seek some version of our shared humanity, but something that's not simplified. I want something that's nuanced, complex and presented in really subtle ways. So let's talk about our origin story. Lin, what gave you the idea to start this podcast?

 

Lin  01:42

So actually, I love what you mentioned about feeling like you're on the outside looking in because I have often felt that way too. And I think that's something that I'd like to include in this or address in this podcast because... Don't we all sometimes feel like we're on the outside looking in. 

 

But anyways, back to where I got the idea to start this podcast. It was after one of our lunch dates because we go on lunch dates every once--every so often. And what we do is--when we meet up--is we talk about books we've read or movies we've watched or TV shows we've watched and what we thought about the represent-- diversity representation in those stories or lack thereof. And I felt like this was a conversation that I wanted to have. Not just with you, not that I don't love having this conversation with you, but that--

 

Margrit  02:40

It's okay, it's okay to get bored sometimes at the same person.

 

Lin  02:43

No, not at all. You have wonderful insights. You know, we're just two people with two perspectives. And there's a whole world of people out there with different ideas that I thought maybe they would like to join in on our conversation and because I appreciate your insight so much. I approached you to see what you thought of this podcast idea.

 

Margrit  03:06

And basically this is the whole idea of the podcast is that there is a whole world of people out there with their own experiences. And stories allow us to see these different experiences that we might not otherwise have access to. And I thought, this is a fantastic project. This little intro is about what to expect from us in terms of the podcast going forward.

 

Lin  03:31

Yeah. And so we talked a lot about this analogy of stories being both mirrors and windows. And that's what we want for this podcast and what we'd like to get out of it ourselves. You know, we want to talk about stories that mirror our own experiences as members of minority communities. But we also want to talk about stories that are windows into other experiences, because I know that I certainly am no expert in diversity. In fact, I think I know very, very little. And so I'd like to use this podcast as a way to explore what diverse stories can look like.

 

Margrit  04:07

Are there experts in diversity? I think I find the idea