Tender Bloodsport

Kisses, y'all! This week we have a bout recorded around Valentine's Day that proved, if nothing else, that humor can be wrung from AA meetings and (holy crap) children's cancer wards (deep breath. Okay, okay I'm fine just give me a second. Okay).

First up, Chris Ledford is a writer, comedian, and former host of the dearly departed live variety show “Song Missing". Chris poured one out for his take on "Bite."

And his opponent, Fray Forde—screenwriter and star of the films “Good Hair” and “Pop Pop Is Dead.” Fray found love in a hopeless place with his take on "Kiss."

Do you arm your troops, or do you feed your people? This week, a wayward exploration of the relationship between a nation's investment in defense and civilian goods, only not really that at all.

Rita Nicole Leslie is a copywriter, comedian, and co-producer of the feminist reading series Bleux Stockings Society. Rita came out shootin’ with her take on Guns.

And spreading it thick, we have playwright Johnny Drago, a queer, Brooklyn-based Southern playwright and performer, who makes comedies and tragedies about sex, death, and the occult, including "Trash," and the 80’s-era human sacrifice teen sex comedy "Hot Pink." He makes experimental performance essays as half of Dismantle Theatre.

We’ve got a super right-brain/left-brain bout this episode!

Joan 'Lyric' Leslie is the author of the poetry collection "My Blackness Rhymes with Joy," and has been in competition as a member of the Java Monkey and Art Amok poetry slam teams. She co-hosts the podcast "Famous Enough" with Alex Ondraya. Here, she details the roles of a friendship with her piece on “Magic.”

In the other corner, we have adventurer, improviser, yogi, creative, woodworker, outdoor enthusiast, and lover of lists Sarah Ackerman. Her grandma thinks she can wrestle bears. Sarah gave her diagnosis with her take on “Science.”

This bout was recorded in front of a raucous crowd in Atlanta, Georgia.

And we're off! Tender Bloodsport pits playwright and son of travelling Christian clowns, Jon Carr against storyteller Maddie Fay in a literary battle of Fly versus Fall

Jon Carr is winner of the 2018 Gene-Gabriel Moore Playwriting Award for his play "Black Nerd," which had its world premiere at Dad’s Garage Theatre Company in Atlanta. He works in Audience Development at the Alliance Theatre. He's on Twitter at @compaq10123

Maddie Fay (@heymaddiefay) is an Atlanta-based storyteller/poet/playwright and is the host of “Then What” an open mic storytelling and live lit series.