by Betsy Fasbinder | Sep 1, 2021 | Podcasts
Lisa Lucca was enjoying what anyone might call an idyllic 1970s Midwest family life. But as an adolescent, the image of the ideal was shattered when she learned her father was gay, beginning a long journey from confusion and shame to acceptance. Lisa shares this experience in her work as a life coach and with listeners on her weekly radio talk show, Live True.
Lisa has contributed to several anthologies, including Crone Rising. She is co-author of an epistolary memoir, You Are Loved, with her partner, Mark, and was a #Blogher Voice of the Year Honoree. Lisa has just completed her memoir, Ashes to Ink: A Memoir, which chronicles her complicated relationship with her father and her search for love with a wounded heart.
by Betsy Fasbinder | Aug 18, 2021 | Extra Blooms, Podcasts
In our first conversation with Amy S. Peele, we focused on her newest role as a newly elected City Council member. But this time we’re chatting about how she’s brought her long career in the fascinating world of organ transplantation into writing medical murder mysteries. “A murder mystery with a mission and a side of humor” is how Amy describes her series. First CUT and now MATCH, the adventure continues. And while there’s always someone murdered in each book, don’t worry; as a conscientious organ transplant professional, Amy always finds a way to use their organs.
by Betsy Fasbinder | Aug 4, 2021 | Podcasts
Toni Gattone fell in love with gardening in her grandfather’s backyard in Chicago, but it wasn’t until she moved to Northern California that her passion began to bloom.
She was a Sales Executive in corporate America for seventeen years but when the gardening bug kept biting, she started a sales company selling gifts and garden products to the retail market. Twenty-eight years later, Toni closed the doors to her business so she could focus on her “encore” career as an author and speaker.
When Toni became a Master Gardener in Marin County she started speaking on her love of gardening but her chronic bad back kept her from gardening with gusto, so she developed a seminar and wrote her book on adaptive gardening and never looked back.
Her book, The Lifelong Gardener, Garden with Ease and Joy at Any Age, reflects Toni’s true purpose and passion: helping gardeners do what they love to do…Garden for life, in comfort, ease, and joy!
by Betsy Fasbinder | Jul 21, 2021 | Podcasts
Julie Ryan McGue is an adult domestic adoptee and an identical twin. In her new memoir, Twice a Daughter, she tells the story about finding out who you are, where you come from, and making sense of it. At 48, Julie was sent for a breast biopsy, and for Julie and her twin sister, this event highlighted what they could not know about themselves due to their closed adoption. What followed was a five-year search to locate birth relatives who could provide family medical history, background, and genealogy. What began as a quest for information ends with the discovery of family, literally, right next door.
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.
