Kate Connolly is the author of Learning To Fly, a recently published nonfiction book where she talks about how exposure to 'small t' traumas (interferences with one's sense of psychological safety) are more common than we realize, and this can ultimately lead to destructive coping mechanisms and behaviours.

In this book she shares her experiences, as well as her (continued) healing journey: what this has been like and how it has helped her to go from surviving, to thriving.

Kate Connolly believes that being open about, sharing, and processing our 'small t' traumas will enable us to alchemize them into something beautiful on an individual and collective level.

She invites all her readers to do the same: "Let's start a movement!"

🤓 Read Learning To Fly by Kate Konnolly: https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Fly-Kate-Connolly/dp/B0C87MZWCX

🙋🏻‍♀️ Get in touch with Kate on Instagram: https://instagram.com/kate.jane.connolly

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Brune Smith is a Book Coach for Empaths, and the Producer and Host of the Première Personne Podcast.

📚 ⁠Sept 3-Oct 29, 2023 group program with weekly coaching calls: Write & Self-Publish in 2 months!⁠

✨Join Brune Smith for a ⁠Free Self-Publishing Masterclass for Empaths on Aug 23!⁠

What happens when inmates are given their voices back?

Out of all the TEDx events Mark Lovett has organized in his career, the one inside prison was the most transformational. Both for him, and for the inmates and attendees in the room. Through his company Storytelling with Impact, Mark Lovett is now a Speaker Coach and Storytelling Workshop Facilitator.

Get in touch with Mark on LinkedIn.

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Mentoned in this episode:

• 
  
• 📘 TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking, by Chris J. Anderson
• 
  
• 📘 How To Tell A Story: the Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling, from The Moth
• 
  
• 🎧 Jessica Abel's 8-episode podcast series (also an excellent comic book) on storytelling, Out On The Wire
• 
  
• 👀 Robin Steinberg's TED Talk: What if we ended the injustice of bail?
• 
  
• 🎧 Ear Hustle podcast
• 
  
• 🎧 The Memory Palace podcast
• 
  
• 👀 From Gangster to Grace | Steve Miller | TEDxDonovanCorrectional
• 
  
• 👀 TEDx at the US-Mexico border: TEDxMonumento258
• 
  

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Première Personne is produced by Brune Smith.

brunesmith.substack.com

Domi J. Shoemaker is a gender-free writer who lives near Portland, Oregon. Domi has quite simply changed my writing life, and they just might change yours.
Domi spent several years with Tom Spanbauer's Dangerous Writers, and started the quarterly reading series, Burnt Tongue in 2012, just before snatching a gig with Lidia Yuknavitch for the launch of Dora: A Headcase. While finishing an MFA in Writing from Pacific University in 2015, Lidia asked Domi to help create the Corporeal Writing Seasonal Creative Lab Series. Domi is now the Seasonal Workshop Lead Facilitator, Corporeal Center Manager, as well as prime holder of space.

Get in touch with Domi on Instagram, Facebook, on their website or through corporealwriting.com.

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Première Personne is produced by Brune Smith.

brunesmith.substack.com

Chatting with Margot Leitman was a dream come true. Margot is an award-winning storyteller, best-selling author, speaker and teacher originally from New Jersey who now resides in LA.

A leading expert in the growing field of storytelling, Leitman has written two books on the subject: the best-selling, Long Story Short- the Only Storytelling Guide You'll Ever Need and her latest What’s Your Story? A Workbook For the Storyteller in All of Us. She also wrote a comedic memoir, Gawky…Tales of an Extra Long Awkward Phase.

She has written for NBC, DreamWorks TV, the Hallmark Channel and the PixL Network and a variety of print and online sources including Cosmo and Backstage Magazine. In 2016 she worked as the west coast story scout for This American Life.

Margot is a five-time winner of The Moth StorySLAM, and was the Moth GrandSLAM winner in New York City achieving the series' first ever score of a perfect 10. Her stories have been featured on NPR's “The Moth Podcast,” “Good Food," “Unfictional,” "Strangers," and is a frequent contributor to the popular podcast “RISK!"

Leitman is the founder of the storytelling program at the UCB Theatre, where she has performed in dozens of shows over the years and is a frequent monologist at their flagship show "Asssscat."

Margot travels all over the world as a public speaker, storyteller and teacher. Internationally she has performed and taught at the SPOKEN FEST in Mumbai, India as well as a six-week teaching residency at the Blue Room Theatre in Australia.

In her spare time Leitman is an amateur baker, avid yogi and a devoted bibliophile. A proud graduate of the Ithaca College Theatre Department, Leitman now resides in Los Angeles.

✨Find out more about Margot Leitman: https://www.margotleitman.com

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Première Personne is produced by Brune Smith.

brunesmith.substack.com

Roxane Gay said of today's guest that he "is an excellent writer who will be endlessly interesting to his readers."

Devan Sandiford is a Brooklyn-based writer, an award-winning storyteller, and the author of the forthcoming Memoir—currently titled—The Silence We Carry: Confessions of the Six-year-old Father. His stories have been featured in The Washington Post, The Moth Radio Hour and Podcast, Speak Up Storytelling, and many other outlets. One of his stories is part of "Bodies of Stories", a collection of 20 vulnerable stories originally told live online (link below). He's contributed his opinions on race, identity, grief, parenting, and storytelling to articles in The New York Times and The Washington Post.

But that’s not where his story began. His story began with his silence—denying his inner voice and believing his words didn’t matter—after the fatal shooting of his Uncle Ron when Devan was 6 years old.

In this conversation, Devan talks about why he finally shared hard truths with strangers and his family after thirty years of silence, how sharing will connect you with other people in the most profound way, and his relationship to the writing process.

✨ Find Devan's story in "Bodies of Stories" on amazon

✨ Join Devan Sandiford's Unreeling Storytelling Community and Movement: devansandiford.com

✨ Follow Devan on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram: @devansandiford

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Première Personne is produced by Brune Smith.

brunesmith.substack.com

Mai Hua lets us in on what moved her to document men challenging the patriarchal model of masculinity, how she accessed her anger after 40 years of life, and what came out of filming a group therapy retreat for her and her husband Jerry Hyde's mini-series, "After Anger".

Watch Mai Hua's documentaries and mini-series:

Make Me A Man ("What happens when men challenge the patriarchal model of masculinity")

The Rivers (An intimate journey into Mai Hua's matriarchal family story)

After Anger (How do we live with our traumas, how do we bury them, how do we move beyond them? For 10 days, in the wilderness, 10 people take part in group therapy.)

Come have a conversation with Mai Hua in Brussels at the screening of "Make Me A Man", on May 25, 2023 (movie in ENGLISH with subtitles, conversation in French and maybe English!)

Mai Hua's website

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Première Personne is produced by Brune Smith.

brunesmith.substack.com

When Mai Hua started documenting her dying grandmother returning from Vietnam, what actually unfolded became a paradigm-shifting movie that has been seen in 82 countries.

"Les Rivières (The Rivers) is an intimate journey into my matriarchal family story. It took me 6 years to accomplish this family archeology."

In this first part of our conversation, Mai talks about: how real life takes us beyond the threshold of our imagination, the vulnerability dynamics behind her choice to expose her family, what actually drives her creative process, and more.

🍿 Watch "The Rivers": https://lesrivieres.maihua.fr/en/

❤️ Follow Mai @mai_hua: https://www.instagram.com/mai_hua/

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Première Personne is produced by Brune Smith.

brunesmith.substack.com

🗣️ I decided to launch the podcast with an episode that sets the stage with my story - context for who I am and how I came to champion creators of brave spaces for first-person storytelling (aka my future guests on the podcast).

I was 31 when my life was shattered, and 34 when an evening at a brewery in Toronto changed... everything. Here is my story.

Content warning: mental health, suicide, terrorism.

📗 "Bodies of Stories: 20 Vulnerable Stories Told Live Online" on amazon

Première Personne is produced by Brune Smith.

brunesmith.substack.com