Female Trouble

Stacia Brown has been writing her whole life, and though she received an MFA in fiction, she’s developed her freelance career on the strength of her nonfiction work, most often in the form of commentary on race, current events and pop culture. In addition to writing a weekly column for The Washington Post’s Act Four blog, Stacia pens pieces for national outlets like The Atlantic, The Nation, Buzzfeed, Vulture and The New Republic. Stacia also hosts and produces a radio show/podcast which just wrapped up its first season, called Baltimore: The Rise of Charm City, in which both public figures and lesser-known residents weave oral histories of some of the city’s overlooked stories. Stacia talked about reacting, sometimes too quickly, in the aftermath of police shootings and tragedies, her responsibility to Baltimore when she writes for national outlets, feeling like an outsider, and stepping away from writing about her personal life.

In art school in the 1980s, graphic design was for the neat and tidy kids -- the ones who knew their way around a ruler and wouldn’t smudge the ink. Ellen Lupton was not one of those kids. A curator, educator, writer and critic, Ellen is the author of several books, one of which, "Thinking With Type," has become an invaluable and widely read industry resource. Ellen directs the graphic design MFA program at Maryland Institute College of Art, and in New York, she works as the curator of contemporary design at Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Despite being among the elite in her industry, Ellen champions do-it-yourself culture -- she has several books on the topic -- and considers it a personal mission to open people’s eyes to the design that exists all around them. (Photo by Michelle Qureshi)

When you hear a band name like War on Women, you don’t expect the music to appease you or make you comfortable -- and indeed, that's not the point. The Baltimore-based hardcore punk band, which is co-ed, is fronted by Shawna Potter, and puts issues like rape, abortion and street harassment front and center. War on Women’s self-titled debut LP came out last year, boasting battle cries with titles like "Meathead," "Roe V. World" and "YouTube Comments." In this episode of Female Trouble, Shawna talks about the person who made her realize girls could play in a band, discovering feminism, and getting over her hangups about being a frontwoman without a guitar.

In December 2014, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake appointed Dr. Leana Wen as Baltimore City Health Commissioner. In her first year on the job, Dr. Wen would encounter challenges she never could have anticipated -- including the arrest and death of Freddie Gray in police custody, the ensuing unrest in the city and the subsequent announcement that Rawlings-Blake would not seek re-election. In this episode of Female Trouble, a podcast spotlighting women in Baltimore, Dr. Wen speaks to Quinn about the challenges of overcoming stigmas in addiction and mental health treatment, the advice she's been told to follow as a woman, and how she stays optimistic and driven when faced with Baltimore's health disparities.

Lane Harlan opened her bar, W.C. Harlan, on an unassuming Remington corner in 2013, bucking convention with the confidence that people would flock to something different. It worked. Despite lacking a sign on the door, a website and a residence on a busy street, the bar drew patrons with its speakeasy-inspired interiors and craft cocktails. Lane followed W.C. Harlan with a Mexican-inspired restaurant, Clavel, that she opened down the street from the bar last year. On this episode of Female Trouble, a podcast spotlighting women in Baltimore, Lane talks to Quinn about how her corporate restaurant experience taught her what she didn't want to do, what authenticity means to her, and how she went from "busboy" to business owner.

In the second episode of Female Trouble, a podcast spotlighting women in Baltimore, Quinn talks to author Laura Lippman. Laura got her start as a reporter, spending 12 years working at The Baltimore Sun before transitioning to writing crime novels full-time. Laura has written stand-alone books and a series that follows reporter-turned-investigator Tess Monaghan. Her latest stand-alone, “Wilde Lake” (which is where Laura attended high school), follows a state’s attorney prosecuting a big case who is forced to confront her family’s past along the way. Laura discusses timelessness, endings in fiction, and what she’s tired of seeing in the genre.

In the first episode of Female Trouble, a podcast spotlighting women in Baltimore, Quinn talks to rapper TT The Artist. Raised in a strict household in Florida, TT came to Baltimore to attend MICA and soon after made waves in the city's hip-hop and club music scenes. TT discusses discovering rap in high school, making it on her own and waiting for the critics to catch up.