Grief Dialogues: Out of Grief Comes Art Podcast Series

Interview with poet Paul Taylor-McCartney

Read his poem The Choosing  and Unfinished on stories.griefdialogues.com

Paul Taylor-McCartney is a doctoral researcher with Leicester University, following a part-time PhD in Creative Writing. His interests include dystopian studies, children’s literature and initial teacher education. His poetry, short fiction and academic articles have appeared in a range of notable UK and international publications including Aesthetica, The Birmingham Journal of Language and Literature, Education in Practice (National Association of Writers in Education), Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, Dyst: A literary Journal, and most recently in Bandit Fiction. He lives and works in Cornwall, (UK).

You can find out more about him by visiting: paultm.org

I met Vena Wilson through another Las Vegas therapist when I brought our play, Grief Dialogues, to the Cockroach Theatre in Las Vegas.  The show, in honor of the first responders of the Las Vegas Strip Shooting a year prior, required a therapist for our talk back.  When the original therapist was unable to attend and moderate the post-show discussion, she recommended Vena, and a new professional friendship was born. 

Since that day in late September 2018, I’ve had the pleasure to work with Vena on other projects including a reading of Grief Dialogues: The Book for the Nevada Hospice Care. 

Vena is a licensed clinical social worker in Las Vegas, Nevada, with a small private practice Honeybee Behavioral Health. Here Vena works with teenagers and their families on building skillful, healthy, joyful relationships and helping the teenager with taking self-harm or suicide off the table as an option.

She finds that the teenage stage of life tends to be a very difficult one, especially so for those with a very sensitive emotion regulation center.  It is only exacerbated by COVID.  Vena teaches her clients about strategies to tolerate painful emotions, handle stress skillfully, and have a better happier relationship with their parents.

Listen in and/or watch as Vena discusses her practice and the techniques that help alleviate tension.

Elizabeth Coplan interviews mental health counselor and coach Peggie Dickens, M.A., LHMC in this inaugural podcast for health care professionals. Peggie Dickens shares her experience with health care providers navigating their way through the current unknowns they're facing during the unprecedented global COVID-19 pandemic, covering her thoughts on the place the mind/body connection will play in healing moving forward.