By Kaitlin Solimine
5
3838 ratings
The podcast currently has 51 episodes available.
In this episode, we sit down with Rachel Somerstein, associate professor of journalism at SUNY New Paltz and author of Invisible Labor: The Untold Story of the Caesarean Section. Rachel brings a unique, deeply informed view on how the personal experiences of childbirth intersect with larger systemic issues that shape birthing practices in this country. Her work has been featured in The Washington Post, Boston Globe, The Guardian, The Rumpus, and Wired, and she’s been featured on Fresh Air. She lives in New York’s Hudson Valley, where we recorded this conversation.
Rachel’s perspective on the creative potential of birth—even within constrained or challenging circumstances- is surprising and refreshing. In this conversation, we explore how the complex realities of labor and delivery, and the impact of medical imperialism, can transform personal responsibility into a broader framework for activism and community support. Rachel offers insight on moving beyond individual blame to understand how systemic factors shape our personal stories and shape the possibilities for change.
Tune in for a thought-provoking conversation about birth, the history and future of C-sections, and the power of understanding systemic influences on our most intimate experiences.
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Kaitlin shares her recent experience of a fast and deep dive into community activism to protect her children’s public elementary school, Sutro Elementary, from potential closure. Only weeks ago, Sutro was among 13 schools in the San Francisco Unified School District identified for possible closure due to budget constraints. Kaitlin helped lead a community-wide campaign to keep Sutro open, which culminated in a 600-person protest, a town hall with the district superintendent, and ultimately, a halt to the closure process.
This experience led Kaitlin to reflect on the essential role of Public schools as community pillars that provide stability and belonging, especially for low-income, immigrant populations like the students and families at Sutro Elementary—and broader, nationwide implications of school closures.
A few Resources Mentioned:
We invite you to share your own experiences with local activism and to consider how public education affects their communities. Connect with us on Instagram @postpartumproductionpodcast, and visit our Website and Substack, linked below.
Visit our website: postpartumproduction.com
Subscribe to our podcast newsletter on Substack: https://postpartumproduction.substack.com
When we decided to focus this season on the subject of birth and creativity, we knew we’d have to include Anna Hennessey, a writer and scholar based in San Francisco. Much of Anna's writing over the past decade, which includes a book called Imagery, Ritual, and Birth: Ontology between the Sacred and the Secular, is devoted to the topic of birth in the humanities. She also has a blog called Visualizing Birth, intended to provide people with images, videos and stories that they can use as practical tools to help them in envisioning the birth of their own children.
In addition to her writing, Anna is the current director of the Society for the Study of Pregnancy and Birth, an intellectual hub for scholars in the arts, humanities, and social sciences who research pregnancy and birth in their fields. Her academic background is in the history of religion, with a focus on Chinese art, philosophy, religion, and language. She's taught in the University of California and California State University systems, and has researched as a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley. She lives with her husband and children in San Francisco and travels frequently to Catalonia, her husband's homeland. Anna is also deeply connected to her own Irish heritage and Ireland, which is a topic that we discuss here as well.
Kaitlin’s conversation with Anna is deeply informative, rich with insightful references to scholars and to artists throughout history who are changing our conception of the intellectual as well as the practical possibilities of birth art.
Books referenced in the podcast:
Also mentioned in the podcast:
Call for Submissions: Society for the Study of Pregnancy Birth (SSPB) Virtual Symposium: "Natality: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Birth as Existential Experience"Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and give us a rating. This will help us reach more listeners like you who are navigating the joys and pitfalls of artistic and parenting identities.
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Visit our website: postpartumproduction.com
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We’re excited to share with you this conversation with Adrie Rose, a poet and trained folk herbalist who lives beside an orchard in Western Massachusetts. Adrie is the editor of Nine Syllables Press at Smith College. Her chapbook Rupture came out in January of 2024, and her micro chapbook I Will Write a Love Poem came out in 2023.
In today’s conversation, Kaitlin and Adrie discuss Adrie’s writing and the connections between her personal experiences and her work on the page. Specifically, the way in which her wider personal history- one that has included everything from the creation of a bakery to investigations of folk herbalism- as well as a life threatening ectopic pregnancy, that all came together to inform her writing in unexpected and evocative ways.
We know you'll enjoy this conversation with Adrie. We personally learned a lot about what it means to live in the world, and also to bring those lived experiences to the page in the form of some really, really meaningful and personal poetry.
Find more of Adrie’s work here:
Also mentioned in the podcast:
Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and give us a rating. This will help us reach more listeners like you who are navigating the joys and pitfalls of artistic and parenting identities.
For regular updates:
Visit our website: postpartumproduction.com
Follow us on Instagram: @postpartumproductionpodcast
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Ori Lenkinski is a dancer, choreographer, and journalist based in Tel Aviv. Her work in all its forms is devoted to exploring the connection between words and movement. She's worked with independent choreographers and companies in the U. S., Europe, and Israel. Her body of work includes The Painting, Portrait No.2, The Suit, Help Desk, Birth Preparation Course, as well as the dance films Carriage and Expecting.
In today’s episode, Kaitlin and Ori discuss Ori's births and how she integrates the moving body—in all its beauty and potential— into not just her artwork, but also everyday moments with her children, family, and her wider community. This was a very vulnerable and touching conversation with someone whose work truly reaches across cultural, political, and religious lines to speak to universal human experiences.
More about Ori and her work:
Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and give us a rating. This will help us reach more listeners like you who are navigating the joys and pitfalls of artistic and parenting identities.
For regular updates:
Visit our website: postpartumproduction.com
Follow us on Instagram: @postpartumproductionpodcast
Subscribe to our podcast newsletter on Substack: https://postpartumproduction.substack.com
Today's episode is one we've been holding for you all with great anticipation. As listeners will hopefully remember from our first episode this season, we spoke with Alexandra Carter, an artist whose work delves into themes of femininity, transformation, and the embodiment of the monstrous as a source of power and creativity. At that time, we discussed her artwork and how she encounters this monstrous feminine. She was also about to give birth in that episode.
Alexandra was just weeks from her due range, as those in the birth world like to say; we had talked about getting together again and discussing the birth after the fact, and she was really excited about and willing to do it. So in this episode, get ready to encounter that monstrous feminine yourself.
Just weeks after the birth of her second child, Alexandra sat down with us to talk about this birth. We are so grateful, as we’re sure you will be too, that she sat with us literally in her body, which was healing from that birth and early postpartum. This is definitely one of those, “you need to hear it to believe it” stories, and it feels like the perfect companion to her episode and like the artist that she is. She somehow magically wove these themes of the anticipated birth and the actual birth here—you're really in for a treat.
More about Alexandra:
Mentioned in the podcast:
We invite listeners to share their thoughts and reflections on this episode. How do Alexandra's experiences resonate with your own understandings of birth and creativity? Connect with us on social media or leave a comment to share.
Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and give us a rating. This will help us reach more listeners like you who are navigating the joys and pitfalls of artistic and parenting identities.
For regular updates:
Visit our website: postpartumproduction.com
Follow us on Instagram: @postpartumproductionpodcast
Subscribe to our podcast newsletter on Substack: https://postpartumproduction.substack.com
Eleanor Stanford is the author of four books of poetry, all from Carnegie Mellon University Press. Her most recent, Blue Yodel, is forthcoming this fall. Eleanor’s interest in birth- not just in a personal context but through a global lens, through the ways that people and other cultures experience it- brought her to Brazil, where she was a Fulbright fellow. Here, she researched and wrote about traditional midwifery in rural Bahia. She was also a Peace Corps volunteer in Cape Verde, an experience which also impacted her poetry and life trajectory.
In today’s conversation, recorded in-person together in Philadelphia, Kaitlin and Eleanor read poetry from Eleanor’s recent works and discuss:
Find more of Eleanor’s work here:
Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and give us a rating. This will help us reach more listeners like you who are navigating the joys and pitfalls of artistic and parenting identities.
Visit our website: postpartumproduction.com
Follow us on Instagram: @postpartumproductionpodcast
Subscribe to our podcast newsletter on Substack: https://postpartumproduction.substack.com
“Companies oftentimes see dancers, especially women, "unable" to have a career, a professional career after they're becoming mothers. And that's also part of the patriarchy because this is not how it works. Having a child and coming back to work, it can potentialize your work in so many ways. It can bring a broader vision for yourself and for others around you. It can change everything.” - Ingrid Silva
Ingrid Silva was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where she began classical ballet training at age eight in the Dançando Para Não Dançar, a program that provided training to young people who could not otherwise afford dance classes.
Throughout her childhood, Silva was inspired by Brazilian ballet dancers, Mercedes Baptista and Ana Botafogo. Outside of Baptista, however, she had very few black Brazilian ballet dancers to idolize. Silva's passion for increased Afro Brazilian visibility in ballet, combined with her mother's unwavering support, inspired Silva to be her own role model at a young age.
By the young age of 17, Silva was an apprentice at Grupo Corpo, one of the most prestigious dance companies in Brazil. And in 2017, she was accepted into the Dance Theater of Harlem Summer Intensive Program in New York on a full scholarship. The following year, she joined the company's community engagement project, Dancing Through Barriers. In 2013, Silva joined the company full time, where she remains today. She felt affirmed by the Dance Theater of Harlem's celebration of African American culture through performance, community engagement, and arts education programs. Silva has held principal and soloist roles for renowned choreographers, including Arthur Mitchell, Donald Bird, Francesca Harper, and many others.
Speaking with Silva at her home in New York, it was a delight to be able to hear her own perspective on this incredible personal journey and how it has intersected with pregnancy and motherhood. We know that you all will really appreciate this conversation today.
Follow Ingrid's journey at:
And discover her recent book A bailarina que pintava suas sapatilhas (currently available in Portuguese, and English soon!) here: http://www.ingridsilvaballet.com/booklivro
Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and give us a rating. This will help us reach more listeners like you who are navigating the joys and pitfalls of artistic and parenting identities.
Visit our website: postpartumproduction.com
Follow us on Instagram: @postpartumproductionpodcast
Subscribe to our podcast newsletter on Substack: https://postpartumproduction.substack.com
This episode of Postpartum Production was recorded live at Blackbird Books Bookstore and Cafe in San Francisco, on a warm Spring day in the shop's back garden. This beautiful event was co-hosted by Recess Collective, a local San Francisco organization that builds inclusive community-centered spaces for families, particularly in the early years of parenting. A heartfelt thank you to both organizations for their efforts in uniting our community on that day, and every day.
That day, Kaitlin joined author Nicole Haroutunian at Blackbird for a reading of her novel Choose This Now, published by Noemi Press this year, with conversation and questions from the audience about her process and inspiration for the book. In the audience were young children and parents wandering in and out; a mother nursing her child for most of the event sitting in the audience. We hope these kinds of readings and author events become more common ways that we can incorporate those whose schedules don't accommodate evening or late night events, but can fold into days when caregiving can, as we know, often feel like the only task.
In addition to readings from Choose This Now, Kaitlin and Nicole discuss:
A special shout out to Artist Residency in Motherhood (ARiM), mentioned in this episode, and Cut + Paste, for bringing Kaitlin and Nicole- and so many other artist mothers- together.
More on Nicole: Nicole is also the author of Speed Dreaming, which was published by Little A in 2015. Her work has appeared in the Georgia Review, Story, the Bennington Review, Joyland, Post Road, and Tin House's Open Bar, as well as many others. She lives with her family in Woodside, Queens in New York City. You can find more of her work at:
Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and give us a rating. This will help us reach more listeners like you who are navigating the joys and pitfalls of artistic and parenting identities.
Visit our website: postpartumproduction.com
Follow us on Instagram: @postpartumproductionpodcast
Subscribe to our podcast newsletter on Substack: https://postpartumproduction.substack.com
"It's about history, it's about family lineage, and it's about what we bring into the world." - Remica Bingham-Risher
We continue our exploration of birth and creativity with Remica Bingham-Risher. Remica is the author of Conversion, which was winner of the Naomi Long Magit Poetry Award, What We Ask of Flesh, which was shortlisted for the Hurston Wright Award, and Starlight & Error, winner of the Diode Editions Book Award. Her first book of prose, Soul Culture: Black Poets, Books, and Questions that Grew Me Up was published by Beacon Press in 2022.
Her next book of poems, Room Swept Home, was published by Wesleyan in February 2024, which we spoke about in the podcast. This beautiful collection examines the murky waters of race, lineage, faith, mental health, women's rights, and the reckoning that inhabits the discrepancy between lived versus textbook history. She's currently the Director of Quality Enhancement Plan Initiatives at Old Dominion University, and she currently lives in Norfolk, Virginia with her husband and children.
In today’s conversation, Kaitlin and Remica discuss:
Discover Remica’s work here:
Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and give us a rating. This will help us reach more listeners like you who are navigating the joys and pitfalls of artistic and parenting identities.
For regular updates:
Visit our website: postpartumproduction.com
Follow us on Instagram: @postpartumproductionpodcast
Subscribe to our podcast newsletter on Substack: https://postpartumproduction.substack.com
The podcast currently has 51 episodes available.