The Family Tree

Dear David (or should I say, Dear Listeners?),

I'm delighted that people enjoyed reading my email on your website last time. How funny! I'm not sure I can write anything that will live up to their expectations this time, I'm afraid. But anyway, I attach the latest recording of myself and Melanie talking about our experiences as changelings. Well, I say 'our'; really it seems to be mostly mine again. Teenagers are very good at steering conversations, I find. As you will hear, we still haven't come up with the right name for our podcast. Melanie doesn't seem to think it's very interesting, but we'll stick with 'Conversations' for now. I should say, we didn't really introduce it properly like you do: we were in the middle of discussing a book when we started recording, so listeners may want to know that the book we're talking about is The Hidden Life of Trees, introduced to me by your fascinating Cuttings episode with the author, Peter Wohlleben. If I could trouble you to put some more music around our conversation again, that would be wonderful.

I hope your listeners enjoy our second episode.

Yours,

Phillip

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The Family Tree is a magical realist dramatic fiction about family, belonging, change and identity.

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Dear David,

Further to our chat about the possibility of you sharing my research with your listeners, I am sending you the first of my recordings with Melanie. She thinks we should be calling them a podcast, but I think that perhaps that's more your domain. As you can see, we haven't yet decided on a name for it… I was thinking maybe we should call it simply, 'Conversations'. Until we settle on something more permanent, at least. I think to properly be a podcast, we'd really need some music, but I'm afraid we don't have anything like that. Perhaps you would frame it nicely with a piece of the delightful music you use on The Family Tree.

Anyway, I hope your listeners will find it valuable. I'm afraid there's rather more talk of me in there than I imagined there might be!

Yours,

Phillip

PS You can use this email if you need some text to go on the website in order to fit your format.

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The Family Tree is a magical realist dramatic fiction about family, belonging, change and identity.

iTunes RSS Help The Family Tree to grow by becoming a Patron.

In this episode, Dave talks to Shajahan, a friend of a friend, who is considering the hypothesis that her late mother was a changeling. If what her mother told her is true, Shajahan may still have her mother with her after all.

The Family Tree is a magical realist dramatic fiction about family, belonging, change and identity.

iTunes RSS Help The Family Tree to grow by becoming a Patron.

As a favour to Nathan, Dave is still putting out episodes of Nathan's podcast, Thought Adventures, on The Family Tree podcast feed. * We think it's important not to believe everything we're told without thinking about it from all angles, even the ones that might not work the way we think angles work. That's why we've created the new podcast, Thought Adventures. In Episode Four, we exchange seasonal gifts, discuss the interesting new developments that came out last week on The Family Tree, and compare the our attempts to be abducted by aliens. We also announce our most exciting investigation yet!

We do apologise for the severe delay in getting Episode Four out to you, Thought Adventurers. Nigel has promised that we'll be more frequent from now on. But fear not: now it's time for a Thought Adventure! It's just like a thought experiment, but it's fun! Festive wishes, Nathan and Nigel * The Family Tree is a magical realist dramatic fiction about family, belonging, change and identity. iTunes RSS Help The Family Tree to grow by becoming a Patron.

In the fourth Cutting of season 2, Dave tries to make sense of recent developments on The Family Tree by talking to an Imam, a Priest and a Rabbi about death, change, transition, faith and belief. The Family Tree's Cuttings discuss the real issues raised in the show with special guests from podcasting, journalism, religion and the arts.

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Find our Guests!

Imam Monawar Hussain: https://www.theoxfordfoundation.com Reverend Azariah France-Williams: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-shapeshifters/id1100385786?mt=2

Rabbi Charley Baginsky: http://www.liberaljudaism.org

Previously on The Family Tree Cuttings: http://thefamilytreepodcast.co.uk/cuttings/cutting-1-podcasts-and-priests/ http://thefamilytreepodcast.co.uk/cuttings/cutting-8-stories-and-more-stories/

Dave and Reverend Beech have returned after their trip to St James's Park. There's a lot of processing to do as they drink cocoa and go over the events of a very long night.

The Family Tree is a magical realist dramatic fiction about family, belonging, change and identity.

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Reverend Beech has a plan so drastic that Dave has decided to split this episode into two parts. In Part I, they discuss what they plan to do and why that will involve a drill, a sleeping bag and a freezer.

The Family Tree is a magical realist dramatic fiction about family, belonging, change and identity.

iTunes RSS Help The Family Tree to grow by becoming a Patron.

Ben is eager to come on the show to talk about his new organisation, 'Change of Heart', dedicated to researching and protecting changelings. Accompanied again by Kora, Dave begins to see tensions within their relationship. Meanwhile, the threat posed by information disappearing online looms ever-larger.

The Family Tree is a magical realist dramatic fiction about family, belonging, change and identity.

iTunes RSS Help The Family Tree to grow by becoming a Patron.

***CONTENT NOTE: This episode generally deals with interpersonal, systemic and state violence but the section from 9.29 min to 26.10 min involves the experience of living in prison and includes graphic descriptions of violence.***

In the third Cutting of season 2, Dave looks at the ways that systems and structures hurt people considered different, other or lesser, in order to contextualise the ways that society might treat Changelings. We hear from Schools ABC about their work fighting to keep immigration checks out of UK schools (1.55-9.29); from writer, activist and ex-prisoner Shaun Attwood about his experience in the Arizona Prison system (9.29-26.10); from intersectional feminist, therapist and equality consultant, Guilaine Kinouani, who reflects on how the mental health system operates for marginalised people (26.10-48.33); and from Marlo Mack from the How to Be A Girl podcast, who considers how being a parent of a transgender child feels in Trump's America (48.33).

The Family Tree's Cuttings discuss the real issues raised in the show with special guests from podcasting, journalism, religion and the arts.

iTunes RSS Help The Family Tree to grow by becoming a Patron.

Find our Guests!

Against Borders For Children: https://www.schoolsabc.net/ Schools ABC crowdfunder: https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/againstbordersforchildren

Wasi Daniju: http://wasidaniju.com/ Shaun Attwood: http://shaunattwood.com/ Guilaine Kinouani: https://racereflections.co.uk

https://twitter.com/KGuilaine

Marlo Mack: http://www.howtobeagirlpodcast.com/

On Getting Better Acquainted: https://soundcloud.com/gettingbetteracquainted/gba-314-wasi

https://soundcloud.com/gettingbetteracquainted/gba-218-shaun-attwood

https://soundcloud.com/gettingbetteracquainted/gba-274-guilaine-kinouani

Previously on The Family Tree Cuttings: http://thefamilytreepodcast.co.uk/cuttings/the-family-tree-season-2-cuttings-1-flesh-and-blood-bark-and-seed/

Many years ago, Mark recorded stories for Ben and Nathan to listen to on a car journey. The cassette has turned up in Jane's loft. But perhaps there's more to these stories than the family ever realised: from what Melanie has revealed about her pre-Mark history, it would seem that in one of them, Mark may have been subtly telling his family what had happened to him.

The Family Tree is a magical realist dramatic fiction about family, belonging, change and identity.

iTunes RSS Help The Family Tree to grow by becoming a Patron.