12/31/18 9:45am pst - Melanie Langston-Bazzell joined Janeane to talk about being a journalist/reporter for Jane Unchained and the Founder of Kind Heart Coalition

Journalist/Reporter- Jane Unchained at Jane Velez-Mitchell
Kind Heart Coalition Founder

LISTEN to today's conversation with featured guest Melanie Langston-Bazzell!




About Kind Heart Coalition

​COMMUNITY, EDUCATION AND LIBERATION!

​
IN MAY OF 2018 MANY ACTIVISTS GATHERED IN BERKLEY CALIFORNIA TO ATTEND THE ANIMAL LIBERATION CONFERENCE. AFTER ATTENDING THE CONFERENCE AND REALIZING HOW IMPORTANT IT IS TO HAVE ACCESS TO COMMUNITY, EDUCATION, SELF CARE GUIDANCE AND A CENTER TO GATHER THERE WAS TALK OF CREATING A COMMUNITY SPACE IN SAN DIEGO, A CENTER TO PROVIDE EVERYONE ACCESS TO THIS SAME SUPPORT. INSPIRED BY THE BERKLEY ANIMAL RIGHTS CENTER, MELANIE LANGSTON-BAZZELL AND RACHEL DEROSE-HOSLER BEGAN CREATING A VISION FOR SAN DIEGO CENTER FOR ANIMAL RIGHTS. A CENTER NOT ONLY FOR ANIMALS BUT FOR ALL SOCIAL JUSTICE MOVEMENTS. A SAFE HAVEN FOR ARTISTS, ACTIVISTS AND EVERY DAY PEOPLE TO COMMUNE AND SUPPORT ONE ANOTHER. IT DOESN'T TAKE A SPECIAL PERSON TO HAVE A KIND HEART IT TAKES SUPPORT AND A MOVEMENT IN EDUCATION.

AND KIND HEART COALITION WAS BORN

​

KIND HEART COALITION
ANIMAL RIGHTS EDUCATION CENTER


ANIMAL RIGHTS EDUCATION

FARM ANIMAL RESCUE EDUCATION

NON-VIOLENCE TRAINING

SANCTUARY TOURS AND VOLUNTEER DAYS

VIGIL ETIQUETTE AND SUPPORT

COOKING CLASSES

YOGA

GONG & SOUND BATHS

ART AND PAINTING WORKSHOPS

CAFE

ARTISTS MARKET

COMMUNITY EVENTS AND ART SHOWS

AND MUCH MUCH MORE.....

12/30/18 9:15am pst - A.W. Barnes joined host Janeane to talk about The Dark Eclipse: Reflections on Suicide and Absence

The Dark Eclipse:
Reflections on Suicide and Absence
A. W. Barnes


LISTEN to today's conversation with A.W. Barnes


“Barnes brilliantly understands the memoirist’s spiritual prerogative—we are able to bring the dead back to life in our prose. We can take the pictures off the wall and make them dance; we can take the facts of dry documents and make them into vivid stories. The Dark Eclipse is a beautiful example of this.”

—Susan Cheever, author of Home Before Dark and Note Found in a Bottle: My Life as a Drinker

The Dark Eclipse is a book of personal essays in which author A.W. Barnes seeks to come to terms with the suicide of his older brother, Mike. Using source documentation—police report, autopsy, suicide note, and death certificate—the essays explore Barnes’ relationship with Mike and their status as gay brothers raised in a large conservative family in the Midwest. In addition, the narrative traces the brothers’ difficult relationship with their father, a man who once studied to be a Trappist monk before marrying and fathering eight children. Because of their shared sexual orientation, Andrew hoped he and Mike would be close, but their relationship was as fraught as the author’s relationship with his other brothers and father. While the rest of the family seems to have forgotten about Mike, who died in 1993, Barnes has not been able to let him go. This book is his attempt to do so.

Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.

A.W. BARNES has a Ph.D. in English Literature and an MFA in Creative Writing. His nonfiction has appeared in Broad Street, The Away Journal, Gertrude Press, and Sheepshead Review. His academic book Post-Closet Masculinities in Early Modern England was published by Bucknell University Press in 2009. He lives in New York City.

12/31/18 - 9:00am pst - Brittani Louise Taylor joins Janeane to talk about book, A Sucky Love Story: Overcoming Unhappily Ever After

What if falling in love meant almost losing everything?

Where does a moderately popular internet star who never leaves her house look for potential suitors? Online. Tinder, Bumble, Match.com, OkCupid—I tried them all. My thirty-one-year-old self clicked and swiped her little heart out, leading to more dates than I could count, and more disappointment than I was prepared for.

Maybe you can relate. Maybe you know all too well the perils of modern dating. But let’s say, eventually, you meet someone. You think to yourself, “Wow, they’re perfect! Take me off the market, put a ring on it, knock me up, the whole enchilada, because they are ‘the one.’” Let’s also say that they “feel the same way” about you. Your life starts to make sense! All the pain, heartbreak, and frustration from past failed relationships was worth it. Slow clap.

That’s how I felt about Milos. He was from Europe, a doctor, wealthy, athletic. He had an accent and a dog. Milos was textbook marriage material.

For him it was “love at first sight,” but for me, it was “anxiety on every date.”

Something was telling me to run—but for two years, the only running I did was straight into his arms.

If only I would have listened.

This isn’t a love story.

It’s my story of survival.

12-24-18 @ 9am pst - Director/Producer Adam Schomer joins Janeane on KUCI 88.9fm!

LISTEN to today's conversation with Adam Schomer.

Adam Schomer and i2i Productions, are known for going to extreme places and lengths to follow heroic stories that bring insights into important issues and ourselves. Adam’s Director and Producer credits began with the award winning documentary THE HIGHEST PASS (2012) a yogic Himalayan motorcycle adventure. Other credits include THE POLYGON (2014), ONE LITTLE PILL (2015), HEAL (2017) which is a #1 iTunes Best Seller, and THE ROAD TO DHARMA (2019) a 10 episode Docu-Series adventure that shows us what it means to be truly free. WOMEN OF THE WHITE BUFFALO (2019) is in post production and looks into the missing and murdered indigenous women of the Lakota Native American Tribe. i2i Productions is located in Santa Monica, California. Our mission is to Unite Through Wisdom and Entertainment

www.Livingi2i.com

12/17/18 @ 9:30am pst - Vanessa Hua, award-winning journalist, columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, and author of the riveting new book A RIVER OF STARS joined host Janeane on KUCI 88.9fm

LISTEN to today's show
with Vanessa Hua!


Vanessa Hua, award-winning journalist, columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, and author of the riveting new book A RIVER OF STARS. Vanessa was recently featured on NPR: https://www.npr.org/2018/08/25/641622076/a-river-of-stars-is-an-asian-american-pregnant-thelma-louise
With so many Asian-American cultural references in the news lately— from Crazy Rich Asians to this recent piece on the one-child policy in the New York Times-- there is a lot for Vanessa to discuss...

With a bounty of research, Vanessa offers incredible depth and nuance to the immigrants' journey, examining the "cultural and economic forces that shape their worlds*" among other extremely timely issues.

“Hua wonderfully evokes the exigencies of lives at the margins of American culture by revealing Scarlett’s enduring ingenuity as she navigates near-destitute single motherhood.”

—Publisher’s Weekly


“Hua… offers a smooth, page-turning novel… A culturally adept work starring the irresistible Scarlett.”

—Library Journal


“Vanessa Hua’s debut is a vibrant, fascinating look into womanhood and how so many women's lives are shaped by their relationship to the powerful men within them. . . . Hua infuses this story with spirit and humor, exploring the ways in which pregnancy and motherhood can be both liberating and entrapping for the women who endure them. It’s a remarkable novel, one which makes clear the many ways in which women must struggle to make their lives their own.”

—Nylon




“A River of Stars splits ‘the Chinese immigrant story’ into a kaleidoscopic spectrum, putting human faces to the many groups—rich and poor, privileged and marginalized, documented and not—who come to America. Vanessa Hua's debut is an utterly absorbing novel about the ruthless love of parenthood and the universal truth that sometimes family runs deeper than blood alone.”

—Celeste Ng, New York Times bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere and Everything I Never Told You


“A River of Stars is a 21st-century immigrant story about the terror, drama, and desperation of being [here] and yet unable to leave.”

—Village Voice


A RIVER OF STARS

Vanessa Hua

Ballantine Books Hardcover, On Sale August 14, 2018


ABOUT THE BOOK

Vanessa Hua’s A RIVER OF STARS (Ballantine; On Sale 8/14) is a powerful story of motherhood, immigration, and identity.


Scarlett Chen is on the run. She is eight months pregnant and stranded in Los Angeles after her married lover sends her to a secret maternity center to give birth, thus bestowing their baby with a priceless advantage: U.S. citizenship. But when she is betrayed, she flees, setting off a hunt for her and her unborn baby. In the stolen getaway van, Scarlett discovers a pregnant teenage stowaway, another escapee from the maternity center. Hiding out in San Francisco's Chinatown, they must reinvent themselves. In pursuit, Scarlett's lover treks from a crumbling Chinese village to a futuristic Silicon Valley genetics lab. He must decide where his true loyalties, and greatest love, lie--and Scarlett must stop running and commit to a future.

Told with empathy and wit, A RIVER OF STARS is an entertaining, wildly unpredictable adventure which is also timely. As we examine the rise of a new China and the perils faced by immigrants to the United States, reassess the role of women in the world, and contemplate what it means to be American, novels like Hua’s are more important than ever.


In an interview, Vanessa Hua will discuss:
China’s One Child Policy and reproductive choices


Controversy over so-called “anchor babies” and immigration policy


Asian-American culture in the United States and particularly in San Francisco


Untold stories from immigrants and the diaspora


Secret maternity tourism centers in Southern California

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Vanessa Hua is an award-winning, best-selling author and columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. Her novel, A River of Stars, was named to the Washington Post and NPR’s Best Books of 2018 lists, and has been called a "marvel" by O, The Oprah Magazine, and "delightful" by The Economist. Her short story collection, Deceit and Other Possibilities, received an Asian/Pacific American Award in Literature and was a finalist for a California Book Award.

For two decades, she has been writing about Asia and the diaspora, filing stories from China, Burma, Panama, South Korea, and Ecuador. She began her career at the Los Angeles Times before heading east to the Hartford Courant. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, San Francisco Magazine, Washington Post, The Atlantic, and Newsweek, among other publications.

A Bay Area native, she received a Rona Jaffe Writers' Award, the San Francisco Foundation’s James D. Phelan literary award, and a Steinbeck Fellowship in Creative Writing. She is a graduate of Stanford University and UC Riverside's MFA program. Other achievements include the Dr. Suzanne Ahn Award for Civil Rights and Social Justice coverage; the Asian American Journalists Association’s National Journalism Award — online/broadcast, print, and radio; the Society of Professional Journalists, the James Madison Freedom of Information Award, the San Francisco Press Club Greater Bay Area Journalism Award, San Francisco Press Club, and Best of the West. She was the Featured Literary Artist at APAture, an Asian American arts festival in San Francisco, and her short story collection was El Cerrito's pick for One City, One Book.

Her fiction has appeared in The Atlantic, ZYZZYVA, Guernica, The Sun, and elsewhere. She received an Emerging Writer Fellowship from Aspen Words, a fellowship at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and a writer's residency at Hedgebrook, among other honors. She works and teaches at the Writers’ Grotto in San Francisco, and is on the faculty at the 2019 Tin House Winter Workshop and the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley.

Find her work at your local independent bookstore, Indiebound, and other online retailers.

12/17/18 @9:15am - Dr. Georgianna Donadio NIWH Program Director Host iHeart Radio’s Living Above the Drama an Amazon #1 Bestselling, Award Winning Author spoke with Janeane on KUCI 88.9fm

Dr. Georgianna Donadio

NIWH Program Director

Host iHeart Radio’s Living Above the Drama

Amazon #1 Bestselling, Award Winning Author 

LISTEN to today's show!

Relationships Expert, Best Selling Author & Media Personality Who Helps People Get More Out of Life Using Effective Communication Skills

For over 30 years, Dr. Georgianna Donadio has been a pioneer in the field of behavioral health, working with healthcare professionals and patients to change behaviors that lead to improved health. For the first time, her pioneering work is the foundation for the newly published book Changing Behavior: Immediately Transform Your Relationships with Easy-to-Learn, Proven Communication Skills (SoulWork Press, 2011).

As a sought-after Integrative Health Practitioner, behavioral health and relationships expert, media personality, and best selling author, her work has led to dramatic lifestyle changes for millions of people worldwide. A featured blogger for Huffington Post and Dr. Mehmet Oz’s ShareCare and Daily Strength, as well as Easy Health Options and Jennings Wire. Her expertise has been showcased in hundreds of print, online, radio and TV interviews including on Oprah.com, WebMD, CNN News, TODAY/MSNBC, Fox News, CBS, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Readers Digest, Night Beat with Barry Nolan, Self and Shape Magazines, to name a few. In addition, for 20 years, until recently retiring, she hosted a nationally syndicated cable TV show, Woman to Woman® which explored all topics of interest to women with a special focus on relationships.

A long-time proponent of the important role nurses play in healthcare, she is one of only six American Florence Nightingale Scholars, is an award-winning Nurse Advocate and has dedicated her life to improving the quality of healthcare delivery and patient advocacy. Her work in behavioral health began in 1976 when, after years in nursing and medical administration, she recognized a critically important missing piece within our current medical care delivery system. This awareness motivated her to establish the Boston based National Institute of Whole Health and develop Behavioral Engagement™, the first known whole person health education and health behavior change model developed, tested and utilized in a clinical setting.

Georgianna lives with her family on a small farm, just outside of Boston, which is a peaceful sanctuary to 6 Jacob sheep, two Norwegian goats, 2 South American llamas, two Paint ponies, and the family mascot, Matthew, a Maltese terrier. For more information, visit www.behavioralchange.org.


For over 30 years, Dr. Georgianna Donadio has been a pioneer in the field of behavioral health working with healthcare professionals and patients to change behaviors and improve health. For the first time, her pioneering work is the foundation for the newly published book Changing Behavior: Immediately Transform Your Relationships with Easy-to-Learn, Proven Communication Skills (SoulWork Press, 2011).

12/17/18 @9:00am pst - Closing out the year with Dr. Dan Siegel, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA, and an award-winning educator. Dr. Siegel joins Janeane to talk about his latest book, Aware: the science and practice of presence.

LISTEN to today's show
with Dr. Dan Siegel!


ABOUT DR. DAN SIEGEL


Daniel J. Siegel received his medical degree from Harvard University and completed his postgraduate medical education at UCLA with training in pediatrics and child, adolescent and adult psychiatry. He served as a National Institute of Mental Health Research Fellow at UCLA, studying family interactions with an emphasis on how attachment experiences influence emotions, behavior, autobiographical memory and narrative.

Dr. Siegel is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. An award-winning educator, he is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and recipient of several honorary fellowships. Dr. Siegel is also the Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute, an educational organization, which offers online learning and in-person seminars that focus on how the development of mindsight in individuals, families and communities can be enhanced by examining the interface of human relationships and basic biological processes. His psychotherapy practice includes children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families. He serves as the Medical Director of the LifeSpan Learning Institute and on the Advisory Board of the Blue School in New York City, which has built its curriculum around Dr. Siegel’s Mindsight approach.



Dr. Siegel has published extensively for the professional audience. He is the author of numerous articles, chapters, and the internationally acclaimed text, The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are (2nd. Ed., Guilford, 2012). This book introduces the field of interpersonal neurobiology, and has been utilized by a number of clinical and research organizations worldwide. Dr. Siegel serves as the Founding Editor for the Norton Professional Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology which contains over sixty textbooks. The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-Being (Norton, 2007) explores the nature of mindful awareness as a process that harnesses the social circuitry of the brain as it promotes mental, physical, and relational health. The Mindful Therapist: A Clinician's Guide to Mindsight and Neural Integration (Norton, 2010), explores the application of focusing techniques for the clinician’s own development, as well as their clients' development of mindsight and neural integration. Pocket Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology: An Integrative Handbook of the Mind (Norton, 2012), explores how to apply the interpersonal neurobiology approach to developing a healthy mind, an integrated brain, and empathic relationships. The New York Times bestseller Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human (Norton, 2016) offers a deep exploration of our mental lives as they emerge from the body and our relations to each other and the world around us. His New York Times bestseller Aware: The Science and Practice of Presence (Tarcher/Perigee, 2018) provides practical instruction for mastering the Wheel of Awareness, a life-changing tool for cultivating more focus, presence, and peace in one's day-to-day life. Dr. Siegel's publications for professionals and the public have been translated into over 40 forty languages.



Dr. Siegel’s book, Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation (Bantam, 2010), offers the general reader an in-depth exploration of the power of the mind to integrate the brain and promote well-being. He has written five parenting books, including the three New York Times bestsellers Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain (Tarcher/Penguin, 2014); The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind (Random House, 2011) and No-Drama Discipline: The Whole-Brain Way to Calm the Chaos and Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind (Bantam, 2014), both with Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D., The Yes Brain: How to Cultivate Courage, Curiosity, and Resilience in Your Child (Bantam, 2018) also with Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D., and Parenting from the Inside Out: How a Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive (Tarcher/Penguin, 2003) with Mary Hartzell, M.Ed.

Dr. Siegel's unique ability to make complicated scientific concepts exciting and accessible has led him to be invited to address diverse local, national and international groups including mental health professionals, neuroscientists, corporate leaders, educators, parents, public administrators, healthcare providers, policy-makers, mediators, judges, and clergy. He has lectured for the King of Thailand, Pope John Paul II, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Google University, and London's Royal Society of Arts (RSA). He lives in Southern California with his family.

Aware: the science and practice of presence is available now!

www.DrDanSiegel.com
www.MindsightInstitute.com
http://twitter.com/DrDanSiegel
http://www.facebook.com/drdansiegel

12/10 @9:00am - Singer/songwriter Holly Miranda has just returned from her solo tour in Austria, Portugal and Spain. She spoke with host Janeane on KUCI 88.9fm about her latest album and more

MEET HOLLY MIRANDA

“I’ve always been a proponent of not making the same record twice,” Holly Miranda says. “Some people find a niche and go with that, but I need to try something different every time.”

LISTEN to today's show with Holly Miranda

That’s more than apparent on Mutual Horse, Miranda’s third release for Dangerbird Records, out February 23rd. The album, Miranda’s fourth full-length solo release, is more than just an artistic step forward, it’s a whole new way for her to make music. “This really is the most collaborative record I’ve ever done,” she says. “It’s first time I’ve shared so much of the writing and the production, the meat and bones of making an album.”

With support from a stellar circle of players – including My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Nova, TV On The Radio’s Kyp Malone, Grandaddy/Modest Mouse’s Jim Fairchild and Built To Spill’s Matthew Morgan amongst others – it’s Miranda’s astonishing singing vocal that is set free, elevating this collection of songs as no one else could. An instrument which can shift from a barely-there whisper to a soaring wail that cracks open the sky, Holly’s voice is startling from the moment it emerges on Mutual Horse.

This record finds Holly bridging the gap between 2010’s experimental synth laden release The Magician’s Private Library and 2015’s stripped-back, soulful self-titled record. Miranda takes an honest and intimate approach, while maintaining her sense of humor amidst sonic explorations. The tracks run the gamut from the sultry, driving “On the Radio,” to a cover of Crazy Horse’s “When Your Lonely Heart Breaks,” and the delicate “Sing Like,” inspired by Miranda’s mother; an intimate clip of her singing while pregnant with Holly follows the song.

The album was recorded in Los Angeles, where Miranda laid down the beginnings of 23 songs before returning to her home base of New York City to finish the songs that would end up on the album. The Dangerbird studio also inspired the album’s title. “Mutual Horse comes from this image we hung in the studio. It was a photo of the singer-songwriter Cris Williamson—we did a cover of her song ‘Midnight Oil’—and I had become a big fan,” Miranda explains. “We printed out photos of her from the 1970s and taped them up around the studio; that was our vibe.” One of those photos was of Williamson and another woman holding the reins of a horse; the two women are staring at each other, but the horse is staring at the camera. That picture was on the wall of Miranda’s studio, and eventually someone scrawled the phrase “Mutual Horse” beneath it.

“It doesn’t feel like just mine,” Miranda says of the album, which took its name from the graffiti. “It feels like it belongs to everybody who worked on it. I opened myself to collaborating this time around, which made me really vulnerable.” Her collaborators on Mutual Horse include Shara Nova (My Brightest Diamond), Josh Werner (Dr. John, Lee Scratch Perry), Jared Samuel (Yoko Ono), Jim Kirby Fairchild (Grandaddy, Modest Mouse), Kyp Malone (TV On the Radio), Maria Eisen (Underground System), and Matthew Morgan (Built to Spill, Modest Mouse) among others.

Miranda grew up between Detroit and Nashville, two music towns that would influence her own journey in a very profound way. She began playing piano at the age of six, taught her self-guitar at 14 and moved to New York at 16 to start her professional career. For nearly 20 years, she’s been performing, writing and producing with some of the best talent in the business. She has performed with the likes of Karen O, Lou Reed, The XX, and Lesley Gore. She released two records with her band The Jealous Girlfriends and has co-written and produced a mass of other projects.

www.hollymiranda.com

12/10/18 @9:45am pst - Hilarious Twitter sensation/writer Dan Duvall joined Janeane on KUCI 88.9fm to talk about the power of a funny tweet in the documentary FUNNY TWEETS!

LISTEN to today's show featuring Dan Duvall!

FUNNY TWEETS, a really wonderful documentary about the power of a funny tweet, starring real-life Twitter sensation Dan Duvall (whose career skyrocketed after he realized he could write good twitter jokes!), is available On Demand this week.

here's the trailer!

Andy Richter (“Conan”), Alec Sulkin (‘’Family Guy’’) Matt Selman (‘’The Simpsons’’) Damien Fahey (‘’Family Guy’’) influencer Elijah Daniel and Danny Zuker (‘’Modern Family’’) feature in Funny Tweets, an enlightening and side-splittingly funny exploration of the 140-character laffer!

From director-producer Laurie McGuinness and writer Dan Duvall, Funny Tweets follows a cashier manager whose ‘Funny Tweets’ help him connect with Andy Richter and the writers of ‘’Family Guy’’ and “The Simpsons”. Through interviews, they share how powerful a ‘Funny Tweet’ can be.

Available December 4th on digital from Upstream Flix.

12/10/18 9:30am pst - Author Brett Fleishman joined host Janeane on KUCI 88.9fm

Author Brett Fleishman is presenting a lot of laughs for kids in his new poetry series!

LISTEN to today's show with Brett!

Toilet Trouble (for beginners), Take A Hike! (for intermediate readers), and Bedtime Story (for advanced kids) include fun illustrations, jokes, puzzles and quirky wordplay, and they’re a perfect fit for a childlike sense of humor.

BIO

Brett Fleishman grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia. In 1995, he earned his B.A. In 2001, he earned his M.B.A. At no point did he earn a roster spot in the N.B.A. Since 2001, Brett has been living with his two sons, Jacob and Dylan, in the greater Boston area. (Please note that, while Brett and his sons enjoy living in Boston, their sports allegiances remain firmly Philadelphian.)

brettfleishman.com

12/3/18 @9:30am pst - Janeane spoke with singer/songwriter, arranger and performer Julia Joseph!

photo credit: Thomas Pryor

LISTEN to today's conversation with Julia Joseph!

Julia Joseph is a singer, songwriter, arranger and performer based in New York City. Her work is very ecclectic, the common thread being her distinct, warm alto and her total commitment to anything she does. She sings with her soul, she lights up the room, she tells a story and she keeps her audience entranced.

Having been compared to Phoebe Snow, Joni Mitchell and Karen Carpenter, Julia's writing incorporates jazz, folk, blues and gospel elements with rich vocal harmonies and intelligent, heart-felt lyrics that explore universal sentiments.

A pro on stage and in the studio, Julia's voice can be heard on the NBC hit show, 30Rock and in the infamous, NYC based Loser's Lounge. She recently participated in the recording and live performance of Red Hot + Arthur Russell. She is also a core member of a private event and party band The Loyales*.

Julia's debut album, Hush, won the 2008 Independent Music Award's popular vote for Best Folk/Singer-Songwriter Album; a debut complimented by her inspired and well-honed live act.

*For more info on Julia's session and collaborative work, please visit the VOXBOX.

LISTEN to Julia's music here!

juliajoseph.com

instagram.com/juliajosephmusic

https://www.youtube.com/user/addyjanes

12/3/18 - 9:15am pst - Janeane spoke with author Tammy Lynne Stoner about her latest book, SUGAR LAND

LISTEN to today's show with Tammy Lynne Stoner!

Tammy Lynne discusses her debut novel, SUGAR LAND and will discuss race and class, sexuality & identity, with her signature wit and style.

SUGAR LAND, a Southern-fried novel, is getting RAVE reviews (see just a few below)—please check out her site to find out more about the little-known true story of the musician Lead Belly who became the inspiration for this incredibly poignant work.


“The love child of Fannie Flagg and Rita Mae Brown, Stoner is sure to win her own devoted following with this ravishing debut.” –STARRED Kirkus Review

“Sugar Land is a well written book and its writing style reminds one at times of Doris Lessing. There is a beautiful flow to the narrative, and the plot is expertly crafted. This is writing at its finest, resulting in a good story that is well told.”—New York Review of Books*

“How can you not adore a novel about love, food, and how working in a prison can help you discover whom you really are? Every page has a beating heart, every character is so alive, you swear you hear them breathing. Stoner is an original and this debut is just fantastic.” —Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Is This Tomorrow and Pictures of You

"In this always surprising and exhilarating first novel, Stoner presents a memorable character. A lovely debut that addresses race and class, sexuality and identity."—BOOKLIST

"Sugar Land is a raw, spiraling, hopeful story… Stoner brings this unmistakable world to life perfectly” —Forward


Sugar Land is the southern story of Nana Dara, a prison cook in the Imperial State Prison Farm in 1923, who—with the help of the blues singer Lead Belly—discovers how to break out of her own physical and emotional prison to become the feisty, lesbian matriarch to a family of Texas misfits.


It’s 1923 in Midland, Texas, and Miss Dara falls in love with her best friend—who also happens to be a girl. Terrified, Miss Dara takes a job at the Imperial State Prison Farm for men, hoping to keep her secret attractions under lock and key. Once there, she befriends inmate and soon-to-be legendary blues singer Lead Belly, who sings his way out (true story)—but only after he makes her promise to free herself from her own prison. Sugar Land is a triumphant, beautiful debut novel about the heart’s refusal to be denied what the heart wants.


PRAISE FOR SUGAR LAND


“With Sugar Land, Stoner creates a captivating story for the ages—a young, southern girl in the 1920s who becomes a ballsy broad in a double-wide, and on the journey learns about love the hard way. This heartbreaking and hysterical book inspires us with a brave and unusual life. Sugar Land is for anyone who still believes in love.” —Jillian Lauren, New York Times bestselling author of Some Girls: My Life in a Harem and Everything You Ever Wanted

“Sugar Land does what a book should do: it compels you to read on. The writing is lyric and dynamic, driving the reader forward—detailing the true challenges of lesbian life in the years before gay liberation was even an idea, providing a history lesson along with open-hearted prose. But perhaps best of all, SUGAR LAND leaves you with characters that linger on the mind and heart for days. This is fiction that stacks up with some of the best Southern storytelling out there and should have a place on the bookshelf next to Fannie Flagg and Rita Mae Brown.” —Kate Carroll de Gutes, Lambda Award winning author of Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear

“His singing bothering you?”

“No more than a four leaf clover bothers an unlucky man.”

“It's 1923 in Midland, Texas, and Nana Dara, newly employed by the Imperial Prison Farm for men and newly awakened to a secret she'd rather lock up than face, has encountered the most unlikely of allies: Leadbelly. Yes, that Leadbelly. Out from this very particular pairing spools a Southern epic that spans decades. With beautiful peculiarity of detail and a perfect combination of sharpness and sensitivity, Tammy Lynne Stoner pens a gorgeous debut novel about race, class, sexuality, and the prisons we make of ourselves.”

—Gigi Little, Powell’s Book Seller and editor of City of Weird


“In Sugar Land, Tammy Lynne Stoner debuts the “Southern-fried novel about love, Leadbelly, and liberation” that she promises—and so much more. Knowing just how cruelly her deep and mutual love with college-bound Rhodie Marie would be received in 1920s Midland, Texas, Miss Dara takes a job at Imperial Prison Farm. The characters she—and we—meet there brim with color, ache with longing, sass, snipe, strike, and, as the book itself does, sing. This big-hearted story spans decades, exploring at every turn the prisons we build ourselves, the exhilaration of cracking them wide open, and the heartbreaking cost when we can’t. Readers will be torn between rushing ahead to find out where Miss Dara’s keen compassion and wry observations lead her next and slowing down to enjoy her wrenching, witty, unforgettable voice for as long as they possibly can.”

—Tracy Manaster, author of You Could be Home Now and The Done Thing



ABOUT THE AUTHOR

tammy lynne stoner’s work has been selected for more than a dozen anthologies and literary journals. Stemming from what her grandmother calls her “gypsy blood,” tammy has lived in 15 cities, working as a biscuit maker, a medical experimentee, a forklift operator, a gas station attendant, and a college instructor—among other odd jobs. She is also the creator of Dottie’s Magic Pockets, and the publisher of Gertrude, and wrangle of the GERTIE book club, based in Portland, OR, where she lives with her lady-friend, Karena, and their three kids. You can find her at TammyLynneStoner.com.


FROM SUGAR LAND

This is how it goes in life: sometimes you’re born with a cleft palette or rickets, like my bow-legged Granddaddy, or a touch short on brains, like my Great Aunt Cal who everyone called ‘Stool.’ Me? I’m a double hitter. In addition to being what folks call “large boned,” I came into this world with homosexual tendencies—though back then I thought of it only as my strange, strong affections for some female friends, having no such notion of “homosexual tendencies” as a thing, at least not in Midland, Texas.

Notions of this nature found footing in me eight months before I ran away to work in the kitchen at Sugarland Prison, when I got a job at the egg store. The egg store was all wood. Wood floors, wood ceiling beams, wood shelves—that rugged, knotty, reddish wood. The simple kind of wood they used to bury folks in before the floods, when rotting coffins popped from the ground like splinters and dead bodies dropped out in maggoty heaps.

The egg store smelled like wood, too, which I liked. That and just the tiniest hint of smoke from Bibby’s metal pork smoker two streets over. I swear he ran that thing day and night, crazy redneck. And that’s where I fell in love for the first time, there in the egg store that smelled like wood and smoked pig fat.

12/3/18 - Janeane spoke with Beth Ricanati, MD about her book Braided: A Journey of a Thousand Challahs

LISTEN to Beth Ricanati, MD!

Beth Ricanati, MD is the author of Braided: A Journey of a Thousand Challahs (now available, She Writes Press, paperback), a beautiful gem of a book perfect for the season when we focus on slowing down, baking, family time, spiritual reflection, and gratitude.

As a physician focusing on women's health, a mother, a daughter, a wife, a friend, Ricanati felt like many today—like she was on a flying carousel, always busy and disconnected from her body and spirit. But when a friend challenged Ricanati to take the time to make challah from scratch for Shabbas dinner, she was knocked out of her stupor and realized: It was time for me to change. Part memoir, part cookbook, and part manifesto, Braided is a heartwarming and powerful exploration of Ricanati's personal tradition of baking this challah every Friday. It has become a self-care practice that has sustained her for the last 10 years, allowing her to reconnect with her family, her home, her community, and her faith, and helped ground her again to be present in her own life.


"I used to just prescribe medications[...]; now I also prescribe baking challah," Ricanati says. "I've learned that making food can be medicinal in its own right” – even if it is white bread!


ABOUT
Beth Ricanati, MD, author of the new release BRAIDED: A Journey of a Thousand Challahs, has built her career around bringing wellness into women’s everyday lives, especially busy moms juggling life and children. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and her MD from Case Western Reserve University; she completed her internal medicine residency at Columbia Presbyterian in NYC. She spent ten years in practice at the Columbia Presbyterian’s Women’s Health Center, the Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Women’s Health, and the Cleveland Clinic’s Wellness Institute. In addition to the frequent online writing that she does now, Ricanati has been a guest contributor for television, print, and online media, and has published medical articles in peer-reviewed journals. Ricanati lives in the Los Angeles area with her family and one challah-loving dog. Learn more at https://housecallsforwellness.com.