Book artist Felicia Rice, UCSC emeritus professor and longtime former resident of Santa Cruz County, joins host Suki Wessling on The Babblery to talk about her life as an artist, a mom, and a community member. Felicia lost her home, her studio, and her life’s work in the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex fire, and has rebuilt her life and studio in Mendocino in the home she inherited from her parents. Her latest book, Heavy Lifting, is a meditation on loss and renewal in collaboration with poet Theresa Whitehill.

For more information:

What happens when women feel open to telling their stories, even when they aren't professional writers? When writer Julia Nusbaum was a graduate student, the course of her life changed in answer to this question.

This episode features an in-depth exploration of women's storytelling, from talking about the roots of Julia's business, Herstry, to the reasons why women still need a space—a brave space—in which to share their stories with each other. We also feature readings from some of the stories that Herstry has published, illuminating the wide range of subjects that women write about when we write about ourselves.

Click here to learn more about Herstry and The Babes Who Write. Click here to learn more about The Babblery.

Music:

This episode features two amazing funny women, Karin Babbitt and Leah Rogers, speaking from the heart. For them, and for all comedians of their ilk, comedy is about bringing their authentic selves to the stage. It’s about being able to express deep, difficult feelings and ideas in a way that draws others into their lives. It’s about finding the limits where others can’t be drawn in.

Karin was on her way to some version of success in the 80s and early 90s, when suddenly she left the stage to pursue motherhood and teaching. She’s come back now as a mature woman with a whole new view of the role that comedy plays in her life and in the lives of her audience.

“I have faith in myself that this is who I am,” Karin explains. “This is the authenticity and I have every right to return to it and be that person regardless of ageism.”

Leah is, by her own admission, considered “cute” in her real life. But onstage, she gets to step out of that role and into the person who grew up with big older brothers who challenged her to do whatever she wanted. She gets to be the woman who speaks frankly of motherhood, being the wife of Mr. Rogers, and the daughter of an illegal immigrant.

“Your authentic self matters and your experiences matter,” Leah says. “Finding joy and spreading joy is what changes conversations. It gives people permission to laugh about some real shit things going on and it gives people permission to be okay with not being okay.”

Listen in! Click here for more information about The Babblery.

For more information:

Content note: This recording contains two instances of mild profanity.

The Babblery is a podcast about women's lives, and though identified female at birth, transgender men are not women. Recent events underscore, however, that LGBTQ rights and women's rights are deeply entwined. And people's views of pregnancy and birth are intrinsically tied to their perspectives on women.

What can the experiences of transgender men who choose to become biological parents tell us about pregnancy and childbirth in our society? Researcher and activist Vann Jones agreed to explore that question. In this podcast, you'll first hear the background information on how transmasculine people may view their gender and their bodies, and what choices they may or may not make regarding medical transition. Then we'll talk about the experiences of the men Vann researched when they chose to become parents. Finally, we learn how the pregnancy and birth experiences of trans men shine a light on our preconceived notions of what it means to be "mom."

I would like to thank Vann and the men who gave permission to have their stories and audio used in this podcast. The more we explore, the more we understand. The more we understand, the more we can learn from each other.

Vann Jones is an undergraduate senior at the University of California, Santa Cruz, located on the unceded territory of the Awaswas-speaking Uypi Tribe, stewarded today by the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band. He is double majoring in Feminist Studies with an emphasis in queer and trans theory, as well as the History of Art & Visual Culture with a concentration in Curation, Heritage, & Museums. Vann is a lifelong activist for the LGBTQ+ community, having worked extensively in the Castro Valley Unified School District and within the Castro Valley community to educate, build connections, bring understanding, and engage in dialogue from the time he was 13 years old until his graduation in 2019. In more recent years, he’s worked for Our Family Coalition, Trans Fertility Coalition, the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History, and the Office of Assemblyman Evan Low, Chair of the California LGBTQ Legislative Caucus, via Equality California’s Comcast Fellowship. He has developed an educational website that houses his research on transmasculine fertility, pregnancy, postpartum, lactation, and parenthood, and has led multiple educational workshops on these topics, one of which was at the 2023 Creating Change Conference alongside his mentor Trystan Reese. He now works with the National LGBTQ Task Force as well as the independent journalist Erin Reed and is dedicated to fighting the onslaught of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation currently erupting across the nation. When he’s not working or studying, he enjoys gardening, sewing, quilting, hiking, making art, watching cartoons, spending time with friends and family, and playing with his cat Mabel.

Photo of Trystan Reese by Kevin Truong. "Boy Meets Girl" song by TRG Banks. Interview recordings used with permission from Vann Jones and the interviewees.

"If you were a landscape": Women walking, creating, and becoming

This new podcast from The Babblery, featured on Talk of the Bay, explores the importance of walking in the writing lives of two women, Patrice Vecchione and Tania Romanov. Host Suki Wessling leads them through a conversation about their books about walking, as well as the importance of walking to their creative lives.

For more information:

by Suki Wessling

When I found out that Santa Cruz had a female lighthouse keeper for 31 years, I naively wondered whether there were other female lighthouse keepers in her time. It turns out that Victorian women lighthouse keepers were a “thing”—stunningly, at the turn of the 20th century there were at least four of them along the Pacific Coast: Juliet Fish Nichols on Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay, Laura Hecox in Santa Cruz, Emily Fish at Point Pinos in Monterey County, and Julia Williams in Santa Barbara.

These four women did a hard, sometimes dangerous, often lonely job that was absolutely essential to the safety of the men whose ships they protected from the rocks.

In this program, we explore the lives of three of these keepers of the light through the work of three women who have researched them. Caroline Arnold wrote a picture book about Juliet Fish Nichols. Lynn Guenther a book for young readers about Laura Hecox. And the program features narrative interpretations of Emily Fish by actress, historian, and teacher Eleanor Morrice.

This program isn't just historical, because history never stays confined to the past. As modern women learn about and interact with the past, we see our own lives in a different light. Learn how each of our interviewees gained understanding of the places they live, the jobs they do, and their own place in society through researching Victorian women lighthouse keepers.

Resources:

The Babblery is produced with support from KSQD. Please visit the site and subscribe on all major podcast platforms.

Winemaking in California, as in Europe, is dominated by male names on the bottles. But dedicated women influenced the early development of the wine industry in Santa Cruz County. Beverly Bargetto inspired other local winemaking women, including our guests on this episode: Prudy Foxx of Foxx Viticulture, June Smith of the Roudon-Smith Winery, and Valerie Ahlgren of Ahlgren Vineyard.

Val and June, now 90 and 91, founded their wineries in the early 1970s. Prudy made her way to wine through sustainable agriculture in the 1980s. All three forged their livelihoods, their wines, and their identities from the rough terrain in the first American Viticultural Area (AVA) to be defined by its mountain topography rather than geography.

Most histories of the region would feature their husbands as the winemakers and thus the center of attention, but like all histories that leave out the women, that history would be incomplete. June and Val, for example, were instrumental in lobbying for the creation of the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA. In this conversation, we learn that Ahlgren Vineyard sprang from the fruit of Val's insatiable curiosity, that Roudon-Smith may never have been known without June's avid pen, and that Prudy's "follow the wine" approach transformed the relationship between the vineyard and the cellar.

For more information:

In this episode of The Babblery on Talk of the Bay, host Suki Wessling speaks with three women scientists, Nasreen Broomandkhoshbacht, Shanna Howard, and Sarah Claus, who study and work at UC Santa Cruz. Although they love the school and their work and studies, they say that women face implicit biases that impede their progress. How is studying and working in science different for women? What sorts of demands are made of them, and how are their contributions overlooked? Finally, why does science need gender diversity in order to lead to the best possible results? Listen in.

For more information:

On Talk of the Bay: When Russia attacked Ukraine, Lidiya was safe back in Kansas with her family. But it didn’t seem right just to sit there, so this teacher and homeschooling mom helped evacuate vulnerable people and learned to source gear and medicines for the military.  When Kiev was hit with bombs, Victoria was at a training for her company. She texted and called family and friends to say goodbye before she started back to her village in Western Ukraine. She made it home, and her family is safe. But she saw her sons start to withdraw, especially the young teen. That’s when Lidiya set about learning a new skill: funding teenage exchange students. Along with Victoria’s son, she’s placed almost a dozen Ukrainian teens around Kansas City. This story of two moms shows how war touches on every aspect of the lives of everyday people. It shows how, in Lidiya’s words, “If you put your mind to it, you can do anything.” Listen in!

To support Ukraine:

Archives of the Babblery Podcast can be found at www.Babblery.com.