Today we’re talking to Miriam BC Tobin, winner of the Goddard Alumni Association Spirit Grant for her work with SCRiB Lab, a writing organization aimed at creating community through experimentation. SCRiB Lab provides writing labs in three categories: SCRiBE for literary writers; SCRiPT for dramatic writers; and SCRiBBLE for ideas seekers. Besides creating a playful space for writers, Miriam is a contemporary absurdist playwright, interested in using the grandiose and extraordinary to explore human truths.

We talk about Absurdism with a capital A in theater: how absurdism (like rocks starting to talk) can be used not to be silly or funny, but to make a point about human existence. Miriam says, “Absurdism is this idea, or this concept of what happens when a human faces the greater universe. And is that space in between ‘I am a small little human’ and the devastation of seeing the great expanse of the universe.” We also talk about how the themes of Absurdism relate to classical Greek and Roman theater, in how humans relate to nature.

At Goddard, Miriam was exposed to pre-Columbian drama (particularly Mayan) and Noh drama, both of which influenced her thesis play. She was specifically drawn to how both of those eras engage the community/audience in the participation or spectacle of the plays, and how the stories continue beyond the end of the theater piece.

Keep up with Miriam and SCRiB Lab at:

Website: https://mirbct.com/plays

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scrib.lab/

Website: https://www.scriblab.org/

And if anyone wants to compose an opera with Miriam, or sponsor SCRiBLAB  do get in touch!

• Sleep No More: https://mckittrickhotel.com/events/sleep-no-more/

• Sleeping Beauty

• Martin Esslin

Warning: SPOILERS ABOUND in this episode! 

Sam Rebelein and Mike Alvarez are back for an appropriately Halloween-y episode! Last time we talked about their horror inspirations; this time we’re talking about their recent (October 2023) book publications!

We talk about their books individually and together: how and why they use body horror to enhance their narratives; monsters as metaphors for grief, loss, and trauma; and the act of writing itself and how it can retraumatize or heal the writer. 

If you’re anti-spoiler DON’T listen to this podcast until you buy the books (spoiler: they’re worth it). If you don’t mind spoilers, take a listen and buy the books anyway!

Snag Edenville and check out Sam’s other work: https://www.srebelein.com/

Snag Mike’s Unraveling direct from the publisher: https://www.routledge.com/Unraveling-An-Autoethnography-of-Suicide-and-Renewal/Alvarez/p/book/9781032346519

Transformative Language Arts Network: tlanetwork.org

Books:

• Kathryn Harrison, The Kiss

Movies & TV

• Jeepers Creepers, Victor Salva

• The Babadook, Jennifer Kent

• Hereditary, Ari Aster

• Fargo (Season 2), FX, Noah Hawley 

Video Games:

• The Last of Us

This week Amanda is hosting a Transformative Language Arts (TLA) roundtable:

• Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, founder of TLA and current chair of the TLA Network (TLAN) board

We discuss the role of words, especially poetry and song  in our lives, particularly how we all recognize the power of words to make our experiences concrete and understood to ourselves and others. 

All music in this episode is by Joy Zimmerman. Featured songs: “We Are a Bell” and “Nobel Prize” from Where the Light Lives.

Caryn developed Transformative Language Arts (TLA) as a concentration in the IMA program at Goddard. While it no longer exists as curriculum at Goddard, the nonprofit TLANetwork is holding community space for people who use written, spoken, and sung word for personal and community transformation. 

One of the keystone events of TLAN is the Power of Words conference. Everyone at the roundtable will be presenting at the 2023 Power of Words conference: 

• Amanda’s workshop: Using TLA to Create & Deepen Your Family Archive

2023 Power of Words conference: https://www.tlanetwork.org/conference

Transformative Language Arts Network: https://www.tlanetwork.org/

Joy Zimmerman: https://joyzimmermanmusic.com/music

Angie Ebba: http://rebelonpage.com/

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg: https://www.carynmirriamgoldberg.com/

Minna Dubin (she/her) is a writer, mother, and educator. She graduated from the Transformative Language Arts program at Goddard where she tackled hard subjects that people aren’t supposed to talk about, from sex, race, identity to interracial relationships. Now, as a leading feminist voice on mother rage, Minna writes about mothers and what society expects of them, from career shifts to emotional calm and reserve, and how these expectations can breed a crisis of loneliness and yes, rage, in mothers. 

Her forthcoming book, MOM RAGE: The Everyday Crisis of Modern Motherhood will be published in September by Seal Press and is available for preorder now anywhere books are sold. 

• Pre-order from the publisher: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/minna-dubin/mom-rage/9781541601307/?lens=seal-press

• “The Rage Mothers Don’t Talk About”: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/15/parenting/mother-rage.html

• Writing the Home Workshop: https://www.amandamontei.com/store/p/writinghome

• Instagram: @minnadubin

• Angela Garbes, Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change: https://bookshop.org/p/books/essential-labor-mothering-as-social-change-angela-garbes/17364605?ean=9780062937360

• Be our guest: https://forms.gle/A9XRF4ynvKK3uCqV9

Chris Younce received a Bachelor’s Degree from Goddard College for his thesis work on Evolutionary Theory. Chris’s experience was indeed very Goddardian as he changed his focus six times from film to the psychology of sport to art to Buddhism and then looked at autism spectrum disorder before he began exploring the origins of consciousness. He dedicated the book which was spawned by this process, Cognitive Liberty, to the school. Its focus pays homage to the multi-disciplinary approach as it links the fields of psychology, biology and ecology. 

Currently, Chris works as a case manager for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. He advocates for a person-centered approach which allows individuals to claim as much agency as they care to. He is also an active and proud member of the Vermont Beekeepers Association where his work in mycology has led him to champion a mushrooms for bees campaign as certain species of mushroom seem to mitigate colony collapse disorder.

Recommendations:

• Accepted (film): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0384793/

Buy Cognitive Liberty at bookshop.org or anywhere you get books. Support Chris’s favorite independent bookstores:

• Bear Pond Books, Montpelier: https://www.bearpondbooks.com/

Follow Chris on Instagram: @harmonic_homesteading

Pre-order Sam’s novel Edenville on Amazon, bookshop.org or anywhere you buy books. Support Sam’s favorite independent bookstores:

• Oblong Books, Millerton & Rhinebeck: https://www.oblongbooks.com/

Mark your calendars for the inaugural TLAN Virtual Salon on April 22, 2023 at 5:00 p.m. (ET)/2:00 p.m. (PT)! The Transformative Language Arts Network (TLAN) virtual salon will feature presenters who are active members of TLAN. Each presenter will have 5-7 minutes to present their written, spoken, or sung work followed by an artist talkback. 

• Join or renew your TLAN membership: https://www.tlanetwork.org/Membership

Support the Goddard Staff Union in their current strike: 

• Read the press release on the strike: Goddard Staff Union votes no confidence in Dan Hocoy : to strike.pdf

Poet and artist Dennis Rush grew up on a remote 100-acre tobacco farm in Kentucky. It was at the end of a gravel road, a mile from the nearest house, which was often unoccupied. He spent much of his time walking through the woods, fishing and just being in nature.

His most recent book, Mayfield is an account of his volunteer experience in Mayfield, KY helping a community which had been devastated by tornadoes. He took his two youngest kids with him to work  at a food distribution center, which was a giant grocery store made of donations.

Keep up with Dennis on Instagram: @dennisrrush

Buy a signed copy of Dennis’s books: www.dennis-rush.com

Kali Meister is an established writer, public speaker, college educator, academic and actress. She is also a sensitive empath and tarot reader. She received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Tennessee and an MFA in creative writing from Goddard College. She found her way to Goddard from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville based on the advice of the program chair Marilyn Kallet who saw Goddard as a place where she’d fit in. In Vermont, Kali found the cold but also like minded spirits such as then program director at the time Paul Selig who is himself a channel. She focused on playwriting which she sees as a kind of poetry. Her thesis play was based on her family.

A true polymath, Kali has also been a laughter yoga guide, taught reiki and done tarot reading workshops. She’s always open to new tarot reading clients from whom she learns so much about the world.

Keep up with Kali:

• Website: https://www.kalimeister.com/

Stephen S. Mills, award-winning author, poet and playwright had, as many of us did, a rather circuitous route to becoming a member of the Goddard community. He grew up in Indiana reading and writing. His first inspiration was the work of Gary Paulsen, writer of Hatchet and other books for young adults. He went to a small liberal arts school in the southeast corner of the state, Hanover College. After graduation, he moved to Tallahassee after being accepted by Florida State’s MFA program. As one of a very few queer people in the program, Stephen was often subjected to more personal examinations of his work. Upon earning his masters, he moved to Orlando where he taught at a for profit school. He taught mostly on-line courses for four and half years. Later, he wrote an essay which was  published on The Rumpus about his experience. It was also during this time he wrote his first book, He Do the Gay Man in Different Voices, which came out six months before leaving the sunshine state for New York.

While working at an HIV outreach program, he was approached about interviewing to become part of the Goddard Faculty. He has now taught at the low-residency MFA program for three semesters and has been wowed by the supportive community of students. Stephen loves being able to mentor so many queer writers.

Stephen’s writing draws from history and pulp culture. His most recent book, Not Everything Thrown Starts a Revolution, found its inspiration in a “This American Life” episode, which looked at suicide by proxy, a phenomenon in which people would kill a child and confess in order to be executed. The first part of the book is a fictionalized version of a perpetrator/victim. The second half is set in the modern day with more personal poems that look at the criminal justice system.

In his current creative work, he’s looking at slasher films of the 70’s and 80’s for queer themes. He explores the connection the queer community has to these movies, especially in the way it allows members of the community to identify with the villains in the way in which they are othered. 

• "Surviving a For-Profit School": https://therumpus.net/2013/07/17/surviving-a-for-profit-school/

• Website: https://www.stephensmills.com

BUY Amy Cutler’s debut novel Shadow of Love out now: https://bookshop.org/p/books/a-shadow-of-love-amy-s-cutler/17846952?ean=9781684339402

Amy S. Cutler is a writer who earned her master’s degree in Creative Writing from Goddard College. Her work can be found in Tales to Terrify, wow-women on writing, the Pitkin Review, Wellness Universe, Elephant Journal. She was recently published in Slut Vomit: An Anthology of Sex Work, by Outcast Press (available on Amazon), a collection of stories that explore the adult entertainment industry. Her second novel, To Have and to Hold, to Love and to Kill: An Agreement of Souls" will be published by Black Rose Publishing in August 2023.

Amy is steeped in spooky stories, not just reading about them but living them. She once had a dog which, in a dream, foretold its own death. She also spent her summers in a haunted house in the scariest place one can imagine: Upstate New York. As a little girl, she loved scary stories and would read them sitting with her back to the attic door to keep the spirits from coming down. She scares easily, relishing the rush of adrenaline she feels. She also loves scaring people even in the simplest ways like hiding and jumping out at them.

Shadow of Love began simply as a scary story about a woman fleeing an abusive marriage and taking refuge in a haunted house. The feedback at Goddard helped her see where the book could go and allowed her to take it to a place it might not have gone. Just being at Goddard, a place widely thought to be haunted, helped her stay in touch with the ghost realm.

She currently resides on Mt. Peter in New York, where she runs a ski area. She’s lived there her whole life and found her earliest inspiration from her summertime strolls through the woods. It was a lonely childhood that she filled by making up stories. An early short story of hers centered on a convict escaping from the nearby jail and coming to terrorize the folks living around Mount Peter.

Her husband, who’s worked on the mountain for 17 years, is her partner in her writing as well. A keen editor, he’s also proven a great ear to bounce story ideas off. Currently, Amy is working on a story about reincarnation.

Keep up with Amy on Instagram: @AmysHippieHut

Amy’s Website: AmysHippieHut.com

Visit Amy’s ski lodge: https://www.mtpeter.com/

For latest updates about Meghan's work, please visit her website and sign up for her newsletter: https://www.meghansguidry.com/

For more information on Kinesiophobia: https://thetherabooks.com/pages/kinesiophobia-1

To preorder Kinesiophobia: https://thetherabooks.com/products/kinesiophobia

Meghan Guidry explores grief through writing that not only cuts across genres but combines them in unexpected ways. With her latest book, Kinesiophobia (forthcoming this fall from Thera Books), she set out to write about her father’s death in a way that transcends memoir and captures the emotional core of how it felt. The title refers to a rare psychiatric condition in which an injury lingers after healing in the form of fear of reinjury so great it is felt as actual physical paralysis. This sort of paralysis might be thought of as one of grief’s most lasting and definitive legacies since, as Meghan points out, we as a society don’t make the room or time to deal with it properly.   

Grief haunted her childhood. At seven, her mother began showing signs of mental illness, drifting away from reality. She’d read tarot cards for hours and hours, thinking she was communication with the spirit realm. Meghan dealt with it empathetically, trying to understand her mother’s world view, which she now understands as a kind of grief.  She found a kind of comfort in Egyptian mythology and specially in the story of Sekhmet goddess of destruction and healing in the 3rd grade, which helped her understand the duality which ruled her mother.

Meghan began writing poetry and then short stories for school. She earned an English degree with the intent of becoming a lawyer but realized she wanted to be a writer. Her mother told her about Goddard whose one-on-one approach appealed to Meghan. Before she got accepted, her mother passed away suddenly of a hemorrhage which then led to irreparable brain damage and forced Meghan to make the choice of taking her off life support. With this weight upon her she began her time at Goddard under the tutelage of Rachel Pollock.

During her last semester with Rachel, Meghan learned that her father had esophageal cancer. Before her final assignment packet was due, he went into septic shock. Though the surgery to correct this was a success, he never woke up again. Meghan mentions this in her last letter to Rachel, who becomes a lifeline for her in the difficult months that follow.

She plans to launch No New Mythology, a monthly literary series that braids an aspect of a myth and what it teaches about grief. She’ll use her own experiences as a jumping off point. It will be a newsletter that you can sign up for at her website. Her latest WIP extends her exploration of grief by asking if the pain of loss for a person hurts less does it mean you love them less. Kinesiophobia will be available on the Thera Books website this fall.

Recommendations

Books

The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales  by Bruno Bettelheim

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Positions with White Roses by Ursule Molinaro

Incubation A Space for Monsters by Bhanu Kapil

Games

Lunar The Silver Star

Bloodstained Ritual of the Night

Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

Okami

Chocolates:

• White