Past Forward

Karen Hampton: "As an artist of color, I have made a life long commitment to creating artwork that responds to the lives of my ancestors.  My lens is anthropology and I study my own genealogy. I travel in my ancestors footsteps, I walk the roads where they lived, explored the plantations where they were enslaved, I am the storyteller.  As their medium I provide a vehicle for my ancestor’s spirits to transcend history and remain as historical memory.   My medium is cloth—whether digitally printed, hand woven or aged linens—pieces are imbued with the hopes and visions of African American lives, telling their stories from a maternal perspective."

Engaging the World: Leading the Conversation on Environmental Justice is a series of informed, sustained, and enriching dialogues looking at how environmental toxicity and risk disproportionately impact populations based on race, ethnicity, nationality, and social standing. Environmental Justice brings awareness to these disparities, fighting to ensure that every voice is heard, every challenge is addressed, and every community has a seat at the table for a greener future.

Guest: Karen Hampton
Host: Jon-Barrett Ingels
Produced by Public Podcasting in partnership with Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Chapman University.

Paul Turay was born in Detroit, Michigan and later raised in St. Peter’s, Missouri. It was in high school that he discovered “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe, and right then he fell in love with a style of poetry with deep meaning. Embrace the Passion in a Lover’s Dream is his first published book of poems.

Embrace The Passion In A Lover's Dream
Atmosphere Press, 2021

A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.

Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support writers and we provide access to millions of books for readers around the world.

Karen M. Wicks holds a doctorate from New York University and has taught in middle and high school and at the college level. She has served as director for curriculum and instructional development at the College Board. She and her husband Les created a supplemental education company. They subsequently co-founded the K-12 public school, Royal Live Oaks Academy of the Arts & Sciences Charter School, in South Carolina, where Karen has been the Executive Director/CEO since 2012.

Twisted Silver Spoons
Atmosphere Press, 2021

A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.

Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support writers and we provide access to millions of books for readers around the world.

Jan Beatty is professor of English and director of creative writing at Carlow University, director of the Madwomen in the Attic writing workshops, and distinguished writer in residence of the Carlow University MFA program. Her fifth book, Jackknife: New and Selected Poems, won the 2018 Paterson Prize, and her memoir, American Bastard, won the 2019 Red Hen Nonfiction Award.

American Bastard
Red Hen Press, 2021

A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.

Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support writers and we provide access to millions of books for readers around the world.

Teresa K. Miller won the 2020 National Poetry Series with Borderline Fortune (Penguin, 2021), having previously placed as a finalist with two other manuscripts. A graduate of Barnard College and the Mills College MFA program, she is the author of sped (Sidebrow, 2013) and Forever No Lo (Tarpaulin Sky, 2008) as well as co-editor of Food First: Selected Writings from 40 Years of Movement Building (Food First Books, 2015). Her poems and essays have appeared in ZYZZYVA, AlterNet, Entropy, DIAGRAM, Common Dreams, Empty Mirror, and elsewhere. Originally from Seattle, she spent three years as a writer-in-residence at San Francisco’s Sanchez Grotto Annex and now tends a mini orchard near Portland, Oregon.

Borderline Fortune
Penguin Books, 2021

A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.

Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support writers and we provide access to millions of books for readers around the world.

Dr. Robert D. Bullard is often described as the father of environmental justice. He is the former Dean of the Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs at Texas Southern University 2011-2016. Professor Bullard currently is Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning and Environmental Policy and Director of the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice. Prior to coming to TSU he was founding Director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University. He received his Ph.D. degree from Iowa State University. He is an award-winning author of eighteen books that address sustainable development, environmental racism, urban land use, industrial facility siting, community reinvestment, housing, transportation, climate justice, disasters, emergency response, and community resilience, smart growth, and regional equity. He is co-founder of the HBCU Climate Change Consortium. Dr. Bullard is a proud U.S. Marine Corps veteran.

Engaging the World: Leading the Conversation on Environmental Justice is a series of informed, sustained, and enriching dialogues looking at how environmental toxicity and risk disproportionately impact populations based on race, ethnicity, nationality, and social standing. Environmental Justice brings awareness to these disparities, fighting to ensure that every voice is heard, every challenge is addressed, and every community has a seat at the table for a greener future.

Guest: Dr. Robert D. Bullard
Host: Jon-Barrett Ingels
Produced by Public Podcasting in partnership with Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Chapman University.

Shawn Adair Johnston was born in Ontario, Canada, educated in southern California, practiced forensic psychology in northern California and Oregon and is now semi-retired near a small lake in Washington. He has taught at numerous colleges including U.C.L.A., U.C. Davis, Oregon State University and Portland State University. Since 1980, he has performed over fifteen thousand judicially referred psychological evaluations, mostly on juvenile and adult criminal offenders. He has published research regarding sex offenders and how to detect deception in court ordered evaluations of criminal defendants. While he enjoyed his work as a forensic psychologist, he has never been happier than writing sci fi/fantasy books starring Peter Straw, the blind detective, and his cohort of human and nonhuman friends.

How The Blind Detective and His Seeing Eye Dog Saved the Narwhals
Atmosphere Press, 2021

A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.

Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support writers and we provide access to millions of books for readers around the world.

Patricia Jovel Flores is Orange County Environmental Justice's new Project Director, and is excited to lead the organization in confronting the many environmental issues disproportionately affecting Orange County's marginalized communities. PJ was raised and currently lives in Santa Ana, California. She began organizing as a student at UC Berkeley, where she worked to bring student power to bear in support of campus labor organizing and the local prison abolition movement. After graduating, PJ returned to Santa Ana, where she organized with Colectivo Tonantzin, a local grassroots organizing collective, to fight wage theft and defend the rights of day laborers and domestic workers in Orange County. Currently, she helps coordinate the Tierras Comunitarias Coalition to ensure public lands in Santa Ana and Garden Grove are put towards community needs such as public parks and open space, in addition to organizing alongside Acjachemen and Tongva activists to Protect Puvungna and other sacred sites in Orange County. In her free time, PJ is a storyteller and musician, and is currently working on a novel centering trans femmes and two-spirit people in the fight for liberation and Indigenous sovereignty. In all her work, PJ is dedicated to building bridges between local Indigenous communities and communities of color in defense of the water, land, and air that we all call home. 

Kayla Asato is OCEJ's Redistricting Organizer as of April 2021. She grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii learning about the effects of pollution, climate change, and environmental racism from war, so moving to Orange County to see similar racial injustices in our soil, water, and air really sparked that passion in making sure justice comes. Kayla enjoys bridging feminist, critical race/ethnic studies, queer, and international relations theories to practice at the local level in the fight for justice. She enjoys doing curriculum work, power mapping, coalition building, and inspiring people through deep canvassing/positive imaginary work most of all in organizing. She graduated from Chapman University in 2018 with a passion for organizing around issues and electoralism. Since graduating, she has been working on nonprofits and electoral campaigns nonstop, and is thrilled to join OCEJ as the redistricting organizer.

Engaging the World: Leading the Conversation on Environmental Justice is a series of informed, sustained, and enriching dialogues looking at how environmental toxicity and risk disproportionately impact populations based on race, ethnicity, nationality, and social standing. Environmental Justice brings awareness to these disparities, fighting to ensure that every voice is heard, every challenge is addressed, and every community has a seat at the table for a greener future.

Guests: Patricia Jovel Flores and Kayla Asato
Host: Jon-Barrett Ingels
Produced by Public Podcasting in partnership with Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Chapman University.

A.M. Grotticelli is a veteran technology trade journalist who resides in suburban New Jersey. After a life of overcoming similar challenges, he is an avid supporter of foster kids aging out of the foster care system at 18 and provides encouragement to all who need it.

The Bond
Atmosphere Press, 2020

A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.

Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support writers and we provide access to millions of books for readers around the world.

Alex Chornyj has been writing for approximately forty years and has been published in books, journals, magazines, and in online publications. He actively reads on monthly blog talk radio poetry shows. His writing has an esoteric, ethereal thread to its origins as he is a reiki master teacher. The source of his material is often intuited through his spirit guides.

Vincelles
Cyberwit.Net, 2020

A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.

Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support writers and we provide access to millions of books for readers around the world.