CancerTalks Podcast

Jimmy Maxwell is a pianist and band leader based in New Orleans who has played a central role in organizing the music of Mardi Gras for decades. He is also a lover of myth and has recently become the audio archivist for the Joseph Campbell foundation.

Jimmy's Reading List:

1. The Emperor of all Maladies by Siddhartha Murkherjee

2. The Gene by Siddhartha Murkherjee

3. The Hero With a 1000 Faces by Joseph Campbell

4. Thou Art That by Joseph Campbell

5. The Inner Reaches of Outer Space by Joseph Campbell

6. The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson

If you enjoyed this conversation please leave a review in your podcast app. CancerTalks is a platform for anyone who has been touched by cancer. Write to us at [email protected] if you have a story to share. If you’re moved to donate, please visit cancertalks.com/donate. 

This podcast was produced by Claire de Laszlo with editing and original music by Annie Murnighan. Cheryl Buck is the vision and heart behind CancerTalks, Kaitlyn Stein makes this work financially sustainable, and Nora Rice helps spread the word through social media direction. As always, we want to extend a special thanks to our donors, friends, and volunteers. We couldn't do this without you!

Mark Pingree is a PhD candidate in comparative literature with a background in philosophy. Inspired by his experience with cancer, his research explores the possibility that illness and disability offer new ways of thinking about what it means to be human in the age of ecological collapse. He has taught college courses in philosophy, film and literature and is currently also in training to become a psychoanalyst. Mark lives in queens New York with his orange tabby named Phaedo.

The cover art for this episode is a photograph of the Mayak Power Plant in Russia. The surrounding area is one of the most radioactive regions of the world and, as you'll hear, plays an important element in Mark's cancer journey. 

1. Illness as Metaphor by Susan Sontag

2. The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde

3. Plutopia by Kate Brown

4. Notes from the Sick Room by Steve Finbow

5. Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor by Rob Nixon

If you enjoyed this conversation please leave a review in your podcast app. CancerTalks is a platform for anyone who has been touched by cancer. Write to us at [email protected] if you have a story to share. If you’re moved to donate, please visit cancertalks.com/donate. 

Our guest today is Stacey Lawson. Stacey told me that at heart she’s not just a business person or a politician, she’s a change agent. She has been an advocate for climate solutions, the clean energy economy and climate justice across California and at the national level. Stacey also leads workshops on conscious business and leadership. She is currently Vice Chairman of Ygrene Energy Fund and an active board member of The Shift Network and the Institute of Noetic Sciences, among others. 

Stacey's Reading List:

1. Radical Remission by Kelly Turner

2. Chris Beat Cancer by Chris Wark

3. Crazy Sexy Diet by Chris Karr

4. The Longevity Diet by Dr. Valter Longo (USC)

5. Forks Over Knives (dir. Lee Fulkerson 2011)

If you’re listening on an iPhone, click the plus sign in the upper right corner to follow our show and get notified when a new episode is released. 

If you enjoyed this conversation please leave a review in your podcast app. CancerTalks is a platform for anyone who has been touched by cancer. Write to us at [email protected] if you have a story to share. If you’re moved to donate, please visit cancertalks.com/donate. 

Maisie Sibbison-Alves is an artist and Shiatsu massage practitioner from Western Massachusetts. For the past ten years, Maisie has made home in many different cities up and down the Atlantic seaboard, organizing around wealth inequality and sharing skills and resources everywhere she goes. Above all, she is a phenomenal friend and one of my favorite people to turn over ideas with. This episode was recorded spontaneously and on an iPhone so you might notice a slightly different audio quality. Hopefully, you will also feel how much love was in the room.

If you enjoyed this conversation please leave a review in your podcast app. CancerTalks is a platform for anyone who has been touched by cancer. Write to us at [email protected] if you have a story to share. If you’re moved to donate, please visit cancertalks.com/donate.

Sandra Marinella teaches writing as a tool for healing and transformation. For the past decade she has inspired hope among hundreds of veterans and cancer thrivers. Her book is titled: The Story You Need to Tell and is accompanied by storyyoutell.com where you can read dozens of inspiring stories and discover lots of writing tips and tools! This episode contains a reference to sexual assault. Please take care of yourselves and each other. 

1. Man’s Search for Meaning by Dr. Viktor E. Frankel

2. Opening Up by Writing It Down by James W. Pennebaker and Joshua M. Smyth

3. The Story You Need to Tell by Sandra Marinella

4. Radical Remission by Kelly Turner

5. The Metabolic Approach to Cancer by Nasha Winters and Jess Higgins Kelley

6. On Writing by Stephen King

7. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

If you enjoyed this conversation please leave a review in your podcast app. CancerTalks is a platform for anyone who has been touched by cancer. Write to us at [email protected] if you have a story to share. If you’re moved to donate, please visit cancertalks.com/donate.

Wyatt Pickner is Hunkpati Dakota from the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe. He is currently the Research Manager at the American Indian Cancer Foundation whose focus is Healing with Culture and Reclaiming Indigenous Health. Wyatt grew up on the Crow Creek Indian Reservation, and now lives and works in Minneapolis, MN.

He uses his masters in Public Health to improve the well-being of Native communities across the United States. For the past 10 years he has worked with tribes, tribal organizations, and Native-serving organizations at local, regional, and national levels on research projects, capacity building, training, and community engagement.

1. Be a Good Relative by Melissa Buffalo and Wyatt Pickner

2. Connecting Traditional Values, Culture, and History to Battle Cancer in Indian Country by Wyatt Pickner

If you enjoyed this conversation please leave a review in your podcast app. CancerTalks is a platform for anyone who has been touched by cancer. Write to us at [email protected] if you have a story to share. If you’re moved to donate, please visit cancertalks.com/donate.

This is the final episode of 2022! We’ll return in the New Year on January 13th. 

Our guest is Jan Adrian. Many of you know Jan through our Community Workshops on Zoom, or maybe you had the joy of attending a Healing Journeys conference. Jan was our very first podcast guest. And now, more than two years later, we’re continuing the conversation - touching in on how her own cancer journey has evolved and diving deeper into the story of how Healing Journeys came to be, as well as what it might look like to continue Jan’s transformative work. 

As we close out the year, it would mean so much to us if you would take a few minutes to leave a review in your podcast app. If you are wondering how you can support this work, you can make an end-of-year donation, for which we would be very grateful. Visit cancertalks.com/donate for more information. CancerTalks is a platform for anyone who has been touched by cancer. Write to us at [email protected] if you have a story to share. See you in the New Year!

Jan's Reading List: 

1. The Cancer Whisperer: Finding Courage, Direction, and the Unlikely Gifts of Cancer by Sophie Sabbage

2. Stones at the Crossing: Aiming True on My Journey from Scared to Sacred by Amy D. Webb

3. The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief by Francis Weller 

In this episode, Nandi Szabo shares what she’s learned through decades of expressive art therapy. Nandi cultivates safe environments where people come together and discover what is seeking expression during the cancer journey.

Nandi’s workshops approach the cancer experience from many different angles, starting with an invitation to meet yourself where you are. All of them incorporate some element of movement - moving tension through the body. In her words, “we will think about it, feel about it, and then move about it.”

Our conversation is full of beautiful resources including the concept of a “medicine bag.” The medicine bag is like a healing toolkit; when you find a certain practice or image to be supportive, Nandi will say “put that in your medicine bag!” as an invitation to remember this resource and return to it in difficult times.

One of my favorite threads in our chat was about lightening up. Nandi lead a whole season of workshops on the theme of light. One of the questions she asked was, “What is the medicine of lightening up? This lead to a conversation about angels and flight and a beautiful answer emerged from the group: “Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.”

Art and Healing: Using Expressive Art to Heal your Body, Mind & Spirit by Barbara Ganim

Art Heals: How Creativity Cures the Soul by Shaun McNiff

“Quotes About The Benefits of Art & Art-Making”

“Art Therapy for People with Cancer”

“Creative Arts Therapy and Expressive Arts Therapy”

“The Effectiveness of Expressive Arts Therapies: A Review of the Literature”

Our guest this week is Dorothy Paredes, author of the beautifully candid memoir, 26 & Fucked. 

Dorothy is also the founder of The Atrium Foundation, an organization that supports people affected by cancer so they can thrive by covering expenses that aren’t covered by insurance, including things that are outside of the realm of medical expenses.

Dorothy and her team believe that mental health and wellness is as important as physical recovery. They have supported people with everything from rent, to alternative treatments, to school supplies for their children.

Dorothy’s long term vision with the Atrium Foundation is to build partnerships between therapists and oncologists so that people have built-in access to emotional support at every step of the cancer journey. 

This conversation was extremely healing for me as the host, and I hope it will be the same for you as a listener. 

This week I talked to Lisa Gilmour who lost her brother to pancreatic cancer. Before he passed, she promised him she would do everything she could to make a difference. We talk about how his illness impacted their family and what it means to cultivate a sparkle of hope.

To learn more about the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, go to pancan.org/.

If you enjoyed this conversation please leave a review in your podcast app. CancerTalks is a platform for anyone who has been touched by cancer. Write to us at [email protected] if you have a story to share. If you’re moved to donate, please visit cancertalks.com/donate.