by Betsy Fasbinder | Jul 7, 2021 | Podcasts
Fay Darmawi is a film festival producer, community development banker, and urban planner using all forms of storytelling and media to achieve social justice. She is the Founder and Executive Director of the SF Urban Film Fest, a film festival focused on civic engagement inspired by great storytelling which just completed its 7th season in February 2021, as a virtual film festival. Her 25 years of experience as a leader in affordable housing finance, as well as five years of screenwriting training, informs her community storytelling work.
Fay wants everyone to understand how we’re impacted by urban planning in ways large and small that effect the quality as well as the duration of our lives. Everything we see all around us from the practicalities of how we live, work, and commute to issues of social justice is “by design.” People make choices about how we live together. Once you have that awareness, what are you going to do about it? How are you going to change an unjust world now that you’re conscious of it?
If you want to see a better world, she believes it’s up to us to work together with other folks in your community and most importantly outside your community. Yes individual actions count, but you will be more effective if you work in coalitions and for the service of those who have been most harmed.
by Betsy Fasbinder | Jun 16, 2021 | Podcasts
Leah Lax is a refugee from extreme religion. Leah’s memoir Uncovered: How I Left Hasidic Life and Finally Came Home is the only gay memoir ever to come out of the hasidic world. She is also the mother of seven children. Uncovered was on many “best of” lists, Susan Stamberg read it on NPR, and it is soon to be an opera by premiere American composer Lori Laitman.
Leah’s next book project is Not From Here, about how she rediscovered America through stories told her by immigrants and refugees, and why that matters. Leah has written four major projects based on interviews with interesting people: a touring photo exhibit, a large scale opera (Houston Grand Opera), a spoken word performance piece (the Houston Symphony), and her forthcoming book.
by Betsy Fasbinder | Jun 2, 2021 | Podcasts
Cynthia Lim thought she had the perfect life with her family in Los Angeles. A loving marriage to husband who was a successful attorney, a fulfilling career in education, two teenaged sons. Then in 2003 her husband suffered cardiac arrest that resulted in profound brain injury, changing their lives forever. Married for twenty years at the time, Cynthia doesn’t know how much of her husband’s former self will return. In her memoir, Wherever You Are: A Memoir of Love, Marriage and Brain Injury, Cynthia shares her caregiving journey It’s the story of re-envisioning life with disability and discovering the real truth of love and marriage. Cynthia holds a doctorate in social welfare and is retired from the Los Angeles Unified School District. She is a writer, traveler, quilter and hiker. She is currently working on a second memoir about her family’s immigration history from China.
by Betsy Fasbinder | May 19, 2021 | Podcasts
Daniel Charles is an intuitive animal advocate, an artist, and a lifelong student of nature and a messenger of love and compassion. Life has been his greatest teacher; from his connection with animals to his many travels and relationships with his fellow humans.... 
by Betsy Fasbinder | May 5, 2021 | Podcasts
Anita Gail Jones is a writer, visual artist, and oral tradition storyteller originally from Albany, in southwest Georgia. In response to the outcome of the 2020 presidential election and the long odds on the campaigns for two Georgia senate seats, Anita co-founded “The Peach Corps,” a grassroots organization that focused on voting turnout in the community where she grew up. In tandem with efforts of others throughout Georgia, this resulted in the wild upset elections of Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. Southwest Georgia is also the setting for her debut novel, Peach Seed Monkey. The manuscript was recently selected as a Top 10 Finalist in the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. Anita is also Executive Director of The Gaines-Jones Education Foundation, a small family charity she co-founded with her husband, Robert Roehrick 18 years ago. Gaines-Jones need-based scholarships are awarded to eligible Black students in southwest Georgia and the San Francisco Bay Area where Anita and family live.
