In this episode I have the privilege of speaking with the brilliant writer, Vajra Chandrasekera, where we discuss his award-winning fantasy novel, "The Saint of Bright Doors." The story revolves around a boy named Fetter – who has certain gifts (he can see other worldly beings that are invisible to the rest of us, he doesn’t have a shadow, and he can defy gravity at times) - and is trained by his mother to become an assassin from when he is a young child. His one and only target is his father, who happens to be a well-known religious leader, known as The Perfect and The Kind.

There are so many layers to this story but the one I am most interested in addressing in my conversation with Vajra is the theme of Buddhist violence. When we think of Buddhism or Buddhists we tend to imagine a pacifist people, monks meditating, Mindfulness!, people practicing loving kindness & compassion. Indeed, these are important aspects of Buddhism, and I would argue, of all religions. And when we hear of "religious violence," perhaps the last group of people we might think of are Buddhists or Buddhist monastics. However, this is the community - specifically the activities and beliefs of the radical Sri Lankan (Sinhala) Buddhist nationalists, that is being highlighted in "The Saint of Bright Doors."

In addressing the themes of state violence, ethno-nationalism, genocide, communal resistance, and the people and the power structures – both the visible and the invisible - that shape us, Vajra Chandrasekera's work reminds us that Buddhist violence isn’t just the stuff of fantasy.

To learn more about Vajra and work please visit his website at vajra.me

Information about the Sri Lankan civil war was drawn from an article written by Nithyani Anandakugan in the Harvard International Review: https://hir.harvard.edu/sri-lankan-civil-war/

In this episode I have the privilege and JOY of speaking with Deesha Philyaw, the award winning author of "The Secret Lives of Church Ladies" – a short story collection revolving around "four generations of women who are grappling with who they want to be in the world, as they are caught between the church’s double standards and their own needs and passions." This book is …. a revelation, and if you haven’t read it yet, I really don’t know what you’re waiting for! Kirkus Review just named it as one the best books of the century. Although we do talk about some of the stories in the collection, I wanted to start off our conversation with focusing on the place of the church in Black communities. Historically, churches represented the first formal “black public spheres” that were developed in the United States. It was the primary community institution owned and controlled by Black individuals themselves. And so Deesha and I begin by discussing the very important social, cultural, and political role the Church has played in the lives of African American communities, but then turn to some of reasons why the contemporary church might be losing some of its relevance for those same communities today. We talk about Deesha’s own struggles with the Church and how this conflict shows up in her stories, as well as how her writing has helped her find some freedom - as well as some closure - from her relationships with her mother and father.

To learn more about Deesha and her writing, podcasts, and projects please visit her website at www.deeshaphilyaw.com

There is so much information out there that we are constantly bombarded with – especially if you are a parent – around how, why, where, and how much we use and interact with digital technologies and, of course, it’s impact on our well being. Whether it is streaming something on YouTube or Netflix, playing video games, engaging with social media, or just being on your phone, the message is usually one sided: a lot of doom & gloom baked in with "it's just bad for you." Books like Jonathan Haidt's best seller, “The Anxious Generation,” argue that the exponential rise in rates of adolescent mental illness is a result of the mass adoption of smartphones, along with the advent of social media and addictive online gaming, what he calls “the Great Rewiring of Childhood” – a childhood that has apparently shifted from primarily a play-based one to a phone-based one. Although I do agree with some of what he says, such as how schools should be phone-free spaces, tech companies who design apps, games, social media, and now, AI tools – should be legally compelled to make these experiences safe for children, and also how the age of social media use should be raised. However, I don’t think the moral alarm and panic that also surrounds this messaging is that helpful. This is why I find the work and research of my guest in this episode to be SO refreshing.

Dr. Katie Davis, an Associate Professor at the University of Washington (UW) and Director of the the university’s Digital Youth Lab, wants to help parents make sense of the often-confusing landscape of research and media messages about kids and technology. In her latest book, Technology’s Child, which we discuss in this episode, Katie explores digital media’s role in the ages and stages of growing up. She draws on her decades long expertise in developmental science and design research and asks what happens to the little ones, the tweens, the teenagers when technology – which is ubiquitous in the world we inhabit – becomes a critical part of their lives? Instead of setting up the dichotomy of is it good / bad or asking how much is too much or completely removing all devices, she urges us to consider how we can use what we know about technology’s role in child development to help children of all ages make the most of their digital experiences. As she argues, self-directed experiences of technology, one initiated, sustained and ended voluntarily, can actually support healthy child development, especially when it takes place within the context of community – whether it’s a relationship between parent and child, an online community, friends, or within the school.

Here's a disturbing statistic: "with just 5% of the world’s population, the US accounts for close to 25% of the world's prison population." As my guest in today's episode, Lauren Kessler, argues in her book "Free," at any given moment millions of Americans are enmeshed in the American criminal just system. And while most are released back into society, within just three years almost three quarters of those freed end up back in jail. In our conversation today, Lauren and I attempt to shed light on why so many freed prisoners find it so hard to reintegrate back into society. There are many structural and institutional reasons for this, such as the lack of governmental assistance, little income or no housing options, lack of work experience (even though many prisoners work in jail), the lack of support for drug addictions or mental health issues, and so on. Furthermore, as we discuss in this episode, the US prison system doesn't seek to rehabilitate prisoners, some of whom can end up spending decades behind bars. Instead the prison complex’s primary job is to punish, and this punishment involves violence, dehumanization, the extraction of free labor, extreme isolation -- anything to shatter a person’s sense of self, stripping them of agency & personhood, and their dignity. As Lauren stresses in her work, it's the re-learning of how to be a human being again that can often times be the greatest obstacle for individuals set free.

To learn more about Lauren's work, please visit her website at: https://www.laurenkessler.com/

For our first episode of the new year I wanted to share my conversation with one of the most delightful guests I've had the pleasure of speaking with: Lola Milholland, author of "Group living: and other recipes." It's part cook-book, part memoir, and wholly a manifesto for rethinking how we live. For as long as Lola can remember, her home was always brimming with people: from her parents' eccentric friends stopping by for an impromptu dinner party, a steady stream of foreign exchange students, to a group of Tibetan monks. Today, Lola lives in a communal home with her brother and house-mates, where they all share resources, labor & responsibilities, and delicious home-cooked meals every night. Lola lives in Portland, Oregon, and runs Umi Organic, a noodle company with a commitment to providing nutritious public school lunches. In our conversation we talk about everything – from her non traditional upbringing by her iconoclastic hippie parents, organic farming and how she came to run a noodle making business, nuclear families - and nuclear war - her obsession with mushrooms, and what really is at the heart of her memoir: that perhaps it is never too late to begin reimagining some of the structures at the very center of our lives – that is, how we live, whom we live with, and what constitutes family.

To learn more about Lola and her work please visit her website at https://www.lolasbeef.com/

To try Lola's delicious noodles please visit their website at https://www.umiorganic.com/

For this last episode of 2024 I had the great pleasure of sitting down with Marjan Kamali, the author of one of the best-selling novels of the year, "The Lion Women of Tehran." The novel, which spans three tumultuous and transformative decades of Iranian history, centers on the friendship between two women, Ellie and Homa, as they grow up, grow close, and then grow apart: "Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences." At the heart of this novel, and of our conversation, is an exploration of the special bond that exists between women - as friends, as mothers & daughters, as aunts & nieces, as grandmothers & grand-daughters - and the strength and power that these bonds can hold when women come together to resist inequality, patriarchy, oppression, and unjust regimes.

To learn more about Marjan Kamali and her work please visit her website at https://marjankamali.com/

With the holiday season in full swing - and new year's just around the corner - people are feeling ALL the feels such as joy, excitement, comfort, gratitude, but also anxiety, grief, resentment, loneliness. However, the message we receive from everyone - and everything - around us is usually some version of "stay positive!" "brighten up!" "choose happiness!" which implies that we need to quickly fix, push down, and ignore the "darker moods" we may be experiencing. As our guest in today's episode, Mariana Alessandri, argues in her book "Night Vision: Seeing Ourselves Through Dark Moods," from ancient Western philosophies, to modern psychology and the self-help industry, our dark moods - like grief, sadness, and anger - have been cast as irrational, symptoms of a mental disorder, or as a sign of personal failure and just plain ol' laziness. We begin our discussion with the ancient Stoics to highlight just how long this "broken-ness narrative" has persisted and then move onto the voices of more contemporary philosophers like Audre Lorde and Maria Lugones who can help us learn how to embrace the dark and to see our painful moods as dignified, as parts of us that make us human.

Just in time for American Thanksgiving, my conversation with Morgan Talty - the award-winning & best-selling author of "Night of the Living Rez." In today's episode we delve into Morgan's debut novel, "Fire Exit," which is inspired by and sheds light on the life-changing effects of Blood Quantum, a system of measurement that was historically crafted by colonial powers to determine the degree of a person’s indigeneity, how much "Indian blood" one must have to "prove" that they belong to a tribe. Blood Quantum, a "sophisticated tool of genocide," as Morgan aptly puts it, became a way to regulate and ultimately reduce the Native American population in America. "Fire Exit" revolves around the life of Charles, a man haunted by his previous life growing up on the Penobscot Reservation and by a secret he keeps that he so desperately wants to share. This book has it all -- urging the reader to question what it means to give & receive love, what constitutes family & kinship, what kinds of trauma get passed down from generation to generation, what stories are ours to share & to hold on to, and ultimately, what does it mean to belong?