Lauren Trantham is the founder and executive director of Ride My Road. In 2016, Lauren started Ride My Road as a personal photography project to photograph American Survivors of abuse and sex trafficking. Since that time, and in addition to photographing over 80 survivors, she has ridden tens of thousands of miles on her motorcycle raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for survivor-led organizations.
Meredith May was our guest, sharing her intimate and inspiring memoir, The Honey Bus. We welcome her back to share the story she portrays in Loving Edie: How a Dog Afraid of Everything Taught Me to be Brave. This new memoir is a story of a dog, to be sure, but it’s also much more than that. This is the story of what our relationships with vulnerable creatures can teach us about ourselves.
Meredith’s books have been published in 17 countries and her first children’s book, My Hive, will be published in spring 2024. Previously, she was an award-winning journalist at the San Francisco Chronicle, where her reporting won the PEN USA Literary Award for Journalism, the Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism, and was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize. She lives in Carmel Valley where she spends her time writing, beekeeping, and volunteering as a scuba diver for the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
Kevin Berthia is a suicide survivor and prevention advocate. Kevin was born with a genetic major depression disorder. In 2005, at the age of 22, Kevin attempted to take his own life by jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge. Eight years after his attempt, Kevin was reunited with the officer who talked him back to safety. Since then, Kevin’s story of HOPE has touched a diverse group of audiences all around the world. Kevin has had the opportunity to share his story with several magazine outlets along with local and national news stations. Kevin’s story was also featured on the Steve Harvey Show. The photo of him standing on the bridge was front page of the San Francisco Chronicle and placed on the 75 most iconic photos of the 21st Century.
Kevin believes that having survived an attempted suicide plays a major role in the prevention of additional suicides. No one knows more about the darkness that surrounds suicide than those who have walked in its shadow.
Kevin Briggs, a retired California Highway Patrol sergeant, spent a decade patrolling the Golden Gate Bridge. A trained negotiator, Briggs handled 4-6 crisis calls a month on the bridge. These challenging but rewarding efforts earned him the nickname “Guardian of the Golden Gate Bridge.”
On one fateful day in 2005, Kevin met with one of the most challenging, yet rewarding encounters of his service career with a young man of twenty-two who had come to that destination to end his life. Kevin Berthia was that young man and the 90-minute, over-the-rail exchange between these two men not only saved his life but was the start of a life-long friendship.
Their hopeful, life-affirming story offers insight into how we can gain an understanding for those in the throes of personal anguish and how to extend compassion to those who may be struggling.
Kevin Briggs has shared what he’s learned in his memoir, Guardian of the Golden Gate. He currently speaks with law enforcement organizations, schools, and businesses to share inspire compassion and understanding about mental health and suicide issues.
Silvia Foti was raised on reverent stories about her hero grandfather, a martyr for Lithuanian independence and an unblemished patriot. His granddaughter, growing up in Chicago, was treated like royalty in her tightly knit Lithuanian community. But in 2000, when Silvia traveled to Lithuania for a ceremony honoring her grandfather, she heard a different story…a “rumor” that her grandfather hand been a “Jew-Killer”.
Silvia, an award-winning investigative journalist could not ignore such a sharply barbed rumor and embarked on a wrenching twenty-year quest for the truth. This journey into World War II history is intensely personal, but filled with universal lessons about courage, faith, memory, and justice as told her memoir, The Nazi’s Granddaughter: How I Discovered My Grandfather was a War Criminal.
