Episode 169: Lorna Landvik, Author

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Lorna is the author of twelve novels, including the best-selling Patty Jane’s House of Curl, Oh My Stars, Best to Laugh, Once in a Blue Moon Lodge, and my very favorite, Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons.

She has also performed as a stand-up comedian and actor, and annually does her one woman show, Party in the Rec Room in Minneapolis. She serves margaritas to the audience while doing improv for the whole show. She’s a riot and this was fun.

Her brand new novel: Chronicles of a Radical Hag (with Recipes): A Novel, is available now at booksellers everywhere, and here.

Episode 168: Kat Rosenfield, Writer

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Kat is the Edgar nominated author of two young adult novels, and most recently collaborated with Stan Lee on his final project, the Audible Original Stan Lee’s Alliances: A Trick of Light. The title is one of Lee’s final collaborations and most innovative works created and finished in his lifetime, and I’m delighted I got to speak with his co-writer, Kat, about working with Lee on this one-of-a-kind audio storytelling experience. Kat is a gifted writer who understands the complexity of youth culture and owning one’s voice when it comes to storytelling.

Narrated by the inspiring Yara Shahidi, Stan Lee’s Alliances: A Trick of Light introduces listeners to a mysterious young woman, Nia, whose fate is intertwined with a seemingly ordinary Midwestern teenager, Cameron Ackerson, whose quest for YouTube stardom takes him to the heart of the Great Lakes Triangle where he is imbued with the power to "see" and "hear" a new reality.

The truly immersive new title is currently available on Audible (Audible.com/ATrickOfLight)

Episode 167: Farhoud Meybodi, Wayfarer Entertainment

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As EVP of Creative at Wayfarer Entertainment, Farhoud Meybodi sets and executes Wayfarer’s overall creative vision across feature film, documentary, series, and commercial content, further strengthening the company’s mission to create entertainment that compels social change.

At his core, Farhoud is passionate about storytelling that entertains, educates, and inspires. He also believes in the transformational power of empathy and shared human experience to heal the political-social divide of the present day.

Mostly recently, Farhoud directed and executive produced several episodes of Wayfarer’s flagship series, My Last Days. He received a Television Academy Honors Award, Muse and Clio for his work on the series. Farhoud also executive produced and wrote Man Enough, for which he received a Telly and Adweek Arc award, and created Project Upgrade, an unscripted series featuring YouTube stars, The Merrell Twins, as they set out to design and build a new consumer product with the help of successful female mentors.

Farhoud serves as a board member of the Wayfarer Foundation, The Muslim Public Affairs Council, as well as Loyola Marymount University’s Business School A-LIST Marketing Pathway, where he teaches a course on Branded Content for Social Impact.

We talked about many things, but one of them was how to invite men into the conversation about equality that promotes healing and forward movement.

See more of Farhoud’s work here:

My Last Days: Meet Anthony: https://www.facebook.com/mylastdayssoulpancake/videos/391034138419712/

Man Enough: #metoo: https://www.facebook.com/WeAreManEnough/videos/2129001024007697/

Episode 166: Maria Mealla, Filmmaker

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Maria was born in Bolivia and raised by storytellers that encouraged her to pursue filmmaking, a path which eventually led her San Francisco. She ventured into movie-making in 2010 and learned the craft through work trade by collaborating with other talented filmmakers on their projects. She has since written, produced and directed the feature film Women and Cigarettes, a collection of romantic short films titled Business Affairs, and a handful of shorts on lower-middle class millennials. She is the chapter leader of the SF Cinefemme Director’s Collective as well as an active member of Film Fatales. Her most recent film Bring me an Avocado, premiered in March and took home the audience award at Cinequest. When she’s not working on narrative films, she freelances as a video producer throughout the Bay Area.

We talked about her path to filmmaking, the state of inclusion within commercial advertising, and her film Bring me an Avocado.

Episode 165: Lisa Hammer, Filmmaker, Writer, Musician

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Lisa Hammer is a film director, writer and musician. She is best recognized as the voice of Triana Orpheus on the Adult Swim cartoon The Venture Bros. She has written/directed independent dark comedy feature and short films such as Pox and Pus$bucket, and the CMJ Film Festival winner The Invisible Life of Thomas Lynch which she co-wrote and co-directed with James Merendino (SLC Punk). Lisa's films have won awards from dozens of festivals including: the CMJ Film Festival, Telly Awards, Hugo Awards, It Came From Kuchar Film Festival, the Chicago Underground Film Festival, Canada International Screenplay Festival, Ontario Film Festival, Antimatter, Indieworks and two from New York Press. She has had one-woman shows at the Olympia Film Festival, Perth International Film Festival, and the Duolun Art Museum in Shanghai, China. Her surrealist silent film Empire of Ache was recently acquired by The Getty Museum’s feminist film collection, curated by Miranda July. Her storytelling abilities support not only writing, but her editing, gaining her the reputation for saving shelved films as “The Edit Doctor”.

Hammer’s most recent film The Sisters Plotz, starring Eve Plumb (The Brady Bunch) was recently acquired by Amazon Prime, the Roku Channel and FandangoNow. Hammer co-created and co-writes the original series Maybe Sunshine now on the Seeka TV channel on Roku. Her new "Environmental-Comedy-Sci Fi- Horror" screenplay Ghostapus is winning and placing in dozens of festivals and screenplay contests and is in development. 

We talked about her career and the gritty days in New York where you could have rent control and live as an artist.

Episode 164: Sigrid Gilmer, Writer

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Today I talked with Sigrid Gilmer. Sigrid makes black comedies that are historically bent, totally perverse, joyfully irreverent and concerned with issues of identity, pop culture and contemporary American society. Sigrid burst onto the national theater scene with her play Harry and the Thief, an action film/historical/time travel play about a thief who is blackmailed into traveling back in time to deliver a cache of arms to Harriet Tubman. It has since been produced across the country, including runs at the Pavement Group (Chicago), the Know Theatre (Cincinnati), and the Skylight Theatre (LA).

Additional select works include Slavey (Clubbed Thumb), Seed: A Weird Act of Faith, It’s All Bueno (Cornerstone Theater Company), Frilly, and White 3: Manifestdestinyland. Her television work includes: A Series of Unfortunate Events (Netflix) and Claws (TNT).

Sigrid’s play Mama Metal is playing right now at IAMA Theatre Company at the Atwater Village Theatre through June 23rd. You can get tickets here iamatheatre.com.

Episode 163: Angela Cohen, Actress, Writer, Filmmaker

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I spoke with Angela Cohen for episode 163. Angela is a writer and an actress with a degree from Emory University in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology. In 2012, Angela founded Charley Bear Productions Inc, with a vision to affect change through art, showcasing the female perspective in front of and behind the camera. Charley Bear produced the dramatic short film, Without Grace, starring Angela alongside award winning actress Ann Dowd. It is wonderful and you should watch it.

In fact, you should watch it today, as it is in the All Voices Film Festival on Amazon through June 17th. Finalists are based upon the numbers of views in the time period. Angela would love to recoup her angel investor’s generous contribution in making this film and stir your heart with emotion in the process. It's 18 minutes- you have 18 minutes!  

Here's the link to watch Without Grace. Tell your friends! 

Angela is fascinated with the brain and the overlap of art and science. The synergy of this will be actualized in her work in Virtual Reality, which she will tell us all about.

Episode 162: Stavroula Toska and Eleni Yiovas of SWITCH

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I spoke with Stavroula Toska and Eleni Yiovas about their award-winning series SWITCH. Switch is the story based on Stavroula’s experiences of going undercover and working as a dominatrix in New York City. Now before you pre-judge this, as I did, let me tell you, you have never heard anyone describe the BDSM world before in this way. Stavroula is the creator, writer, actor – coming from a long career as a filmmaker, and Eleni is an Executive Producer and actor.

The series features no less than Olympia Dukakis, John Lindstrom, and Cady McClain, and episodes were directed by Cady McClain, Laurie Weltz, Katie Maguire and Stavroula.

Stavroula and Eleni sat down with me and spoke of this work with such empathy, compassion, and respect for humanity, vulnerability, and the ways in which we heal the world. Seriously, we brought up Brene Brown.

More about the series:

www.switchtheseries.com

Based on the true life story of creator Stavroula Toska, SWITCH follows Stella, an immigrant woman with a dark past who begins training as a professional dominatrix in New York City's most exclusive BDSM Establishment while battling PTSD and trying to build a better life for herself. 

SWITCH takes viewers on a journey to the riveting world of BDSM from a deeply benevolent, unorthodox and cerebral POV by following Stella and the main characters as they navigate leading a double life, the struggle for power, identity, ambition, love and family.  We explore the many aspects of human nature and conditioning that most people never discuss openly; the fantasies we have and why, the childhood trauma buried inside each one of us, the various masks we wear in order to survive in this world, the struggle to lead a decent life, the unspoken pain that is desperately looking for an outlet, the duality in us all, and the lengths we go to in order to connect with one another. 

The title refers to the switch we make when we explore our other side, when we go through the darkness in order to find our light, when we start listening to the parts of our self that were shamed to silence, when we hit rock bottom and start rising again.  Switch is also a popular term used in BDSM practice representing the power exchange between two consenting adults of the opposite sex. 

HuffPo story about Stavroula here

The Awards so far…

SWITCH was recently honored with the 2019 BEST STORY AWARD at the prestigious Santa Fe Film Festival, it has received the BEST SUSPENSE/ BEST ACTION AWARD at the New York Women in Film and Television & Go Indie TV / Roku TV competition, and Stavroula Toska received the OUTSTANDING ACTRESS AWARD category in the same competition. The series has also received the BEST PILOT / BEST NEW SERIES AWARD at the 2019 Calcutta International Film Festival and at the 2019 Los Angeles Independent Film Festival, the BEST PILOT AWARD at the 2019 Best Shorts Film Festival, the BEST WEB SERIES AWARD at the Global Shorts Film Festival. 

Cast: 

SWITCH features a most inclusive and stellar cast and crew (over 70% female), including Academy Award and Golden Globe winner Olympia Dukakis (Moonstruck, The Infiltrator, Bored to Death, Steel Magnolias, Tales of the City, Look who’s Talking), two-time Emmy winner Cady McClain (All My Children, As the World Turns, Seeing is Believing: Women Direct, Law & Order), Emmy-nominee Jon Lindstrom (True Detective, BOSCH, NCIS: Los Angeles, General Hospital) Mark Borkowski (House of Cards, Boardwalk Empire, Blue Bloods), India Ennenga (The Irishman, The Orchard, About Scout, Treme), Bobby Daniel Rodriguez (Narcos, Central Park Five, Bel Canto, Orange in the New Black), Katie Maguire (Billions, Search Party, LI Divas, Blue Bloods), Catherine Chadwick (White Collar, Z: The Beginning of Everything, The Normal Heart).

Episode 161: Lee Broda, Actor, Producer

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Lee is an Israeli-born poet who writes about the beauties – and uncertainties – of life from a distinctly observant perspective. Her first book of poetry; Whispers From the Moon is available now and she reads some of it for us.

Lee is also a celebrated actor and producer, and is the founder of LB Entertainment, which develops, finances, and produces major independent films, where she has shepherded over thirty films to success.

Additionally, Lee is the founder of the group Women Creating Change, an organization that bridges, empowers, and creates opportunities for female writers, directors, producers, and actors from the Middle East.

We talked about all it. Like it’s no big deal.

Episode 160: Lorraine Devon Wilke, Author

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.Lorraine is a writer, an actor, a musician, and activist = but today we talked mostly about the writing. In 2010 she launched her “arts & politics” blog, Rock+Paper+Music, and from 2011 to 2018 she was a popular contributor at HuffPost typically focused on politics and social issues.

A produced and awarded screenwriter, she’s spent more recent years working in longform fiction as well. Both her award-winning novels, After the Sucker Punch and Hysterical Love, are available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Her latest, The Alchemy of Noise, contemporary literary fiction that digs deep into issues of privilege, profiling, and prejudice in contemporary Chicago, is published by She Writes Press, and was released in April 2019.

 We talked mostly about her book and we got very deep into race and politics and the work that white people need to do. Buckle in, cause we went there.

You can buy the book here (click)

You can Lorraine in all of these places:

Website: www.lorrainedevonwilke.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/lorrainedevonwilke

Facebook Writer's page: www.facebook.com/lorrainedevonwilke.fans/

Twitter: twitter.com/LorraineDWilke

Instagram: www.instagram.com/lorrainedevonwilke/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8185626.Lorraine_Devon_Wilke

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/lorraine-devon-wilke

Amazon author page: www.amazon.com/-/e/B00K2ZOLSA

Rock+Paper+Music blog: www.rockpapermusic.com

Episode 129: Sue Obeidi, Director of MPAC's Hollywood Bureau

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Sue is the Director of the Hollywood Bureau of the Muslim Public Affairs Council or MPAC. Since MPAC’s Hollywood Bureau was launched in 2011, Sue has blended the love of her faith with her love of film, television, and digital series to change and expand the narrative of Islam and Muslims in the entertainment industry.

Behind the scenes, Sue engages decision makers and creatives to improve the quality and number of authentic, nuanced, and inclusive presentations of Islam and Muslims so that audiences can see Muslims as vital contributors to creating social and cultural change in America and around the world. She also enriches the pool of Muslim talent in Hollywood by nurturing and connecting them to those who can assist with their careers, both on the creative and business sides of the industry.

In 2017, Sue was chosen for Variety's Inclusion Impact Report as one of 60 changemakers making the entertainment industry more inclusive.

We had a great and timely conversation.

Click here to get tickets for the convention for Advancing America Toward Justice on November 10th.