by Betsy Fasbinder | Aug 17, 2022 | Podcasts
Toby Dorr dared the unthinkable. She broke a convicted murderer out of Lansing Correctional Facility. Since completing her time in Federal Prison, she has achieved two Master’s degrees and rebuilt a broken life. Since her first visit to The Morning Glory Project in 2019, Toby has been making good on her promises to herself and her community.
She’s written and published what she calls her Unleashed series—a series of three workbooks to help women to gain strength and power and to avoid the mistakes that she has made.
Through her memoir, Living with Conviction: Unexpected Sisterhood, Healing, and Redemption in the Wake of Life-Altering Choices, Toby takes readers through all of the heart-pounding, tear-jerking, heartbreaking, eye-opening experiences that touch the most primal human need, the need to be significant. A fascinating prison tale, through the lens of love, inspires change.
by Betsy Fasbinder | Aug 3, 2022 | Podcasts
Jess Ayers is a seasoned musician turned successful freelance writer. On the day that she and her husband brought their three-day-old son Jax home, and loved ones came to welcome the new arrival, nobody could have imagined what would happen. A random bullet, shot by a neighbor more than 200 yards away traveled past dozens of trees, entered their house and killed Jess’s husband, and father to their newborn before her eyes. Through the shock, grief, and profound loss, Jess needed to take care of her newborn and build a life different than she’d planned for herself and her son. Jess had to find her own music, her own voice without Justin, and turned to writing as part of her own healing and to help others deal with their loss. Through her blog, The Singing Widow, and as a contributor on POPSUGAR, and Love What Matters, Jess continues to share her story of love, loss, and healing.
by Betsy Fasbinder | Jul 20, 2022 | Podcasts
Lorinda Boyer strove continuously to be virtuous in the eyes of God and to live the life she believed He intended for her. She married her high school boyfriend at eighteen and had two kids by twenty-eight. Although she created a perfect Christian home for her family, she never felt wholly content in her role as wife and mother. Then her life intersected with Robin’s-the woman who would ultimately awaken her sexuality and show her true love for the first time. Struggling to come to terms with her sexual identity within the confines of her strict fundamentalist Christian upbringing, Lorinda is pushed into living a double life: one part perfect housewife and mother, the other part sexual addict. She soon finds herself in the fight for her life. More than a coming-out story, this is a coming-into story. It is the story of coming into an authentic life and self.
by Betsy Fasbinder | Jul 13, 2022 | Podcasts
After a five year struggle with infertility, many heartbreaking disappointments, and with the help of IVF, Jessica Pritchett was finally pregnant. She and her husband awaited the arrival of their much-loved daughter, Izabella. But after multiple medical complications far outside of their control, and after all medical intervention failed, losing Izabella was inevitable and they were faced with the most horrible of choices: to carry the child further would result in Jessica’s death and her daughter’s too. The pregnancy was not far enough along for the infant to be viable outside the womb. Together with her husband and her doctors, Jessica made the agonizing choice to induce labor, knowing that her daughter would likely not survive it. This was grief upon grief for this couple that so wanted to be parents.
Now, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to disregard 50 years of legal precedent, and to overturn federal laws to protect a woman’s right to body autonomy and medical privacy, Jessica has discovered a new kind of grief. She’s been called vile, disgusting, selfish, and a murderer by those who claim to hold a “pro-life” stance.
This is a story of hard choices and a family that has faced them, lived with them, and remained a loving family.
by Betsy Fasbinder | Jul 6, 2022 | Podcasts
Dr. Lucinda Jackson is the author of the memoir Just a Girl: Growing Up Female and Ambitious about her struggles to succeed as a scientist in male-dominated oil and gas and chemical organizations. Her story continues in her new book coming out April 2022: Project Escape: Lessons for an Unscripted Life about the complex transition from hard-hitting career to retirement. Jackson is the Founder of LJ Ventures, where she speaks and consults on energy and the environment and empowering women in the workplace and the Next Act.
by Betsy Fasbinder | Jun 15, 2022 | Podcasts
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.
