Episodes

Wednesday Aug 14, 2019
Encore Episode - Alexis Rhone Fancher Mother of a Story- Cruel Choices
Wednesday Aug 14, 2019
Wednesday Aug 14, 2019
We're telling stories.
Raw honest unapologetic episode about life after the death of this writer's son. She holds nothing back.
Alexis Rhone Fancher is an award winning poet and photographer. She has been published in Best American Poetry 2016, Rattle, Hobart, Verse Daily, Plume, Tinderbox, Cleaver, and elsewhere. Her books include: How I Lost My Virginity to Michael Cohen…, State of Grace: The Joshua Elegies, Enter Here, and Junkie Wife.
The Dead Kid Poems, the follow up to State of Grace, is available now on Amazon.
Alexis’s photographs are published worldwide, including the covers of Witness, Heyday, and Pit-head Chapel, and a spread in River Styx. Since 2013, she has been nominated more than 20 times for the Pushcart Prize. Alexis is poetry editor of Cultural Weekly.
The poems in this episode are:
Cruel Choices -winner of the Pangolin Prize, nominated for The Pushcart Prize (pub in ASKEW, and in Amarylis, UK)
Keeping Things Cold (pub in Diode)
Snow Globe (pub in The MacGuffin)
You can find Alexis Rhone Fancher here -
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alexis.fancher
Website: www.alexisrhonefancher.com
Links to her books:
How I lost my Virginity to Michael Cohen and Other Heart Stab Poems
If it's not 1 Thing, explores the topic of 'mother' from every angle imaginable and some you have not thought of. Each week, hosts Katie Mitchell and Lupe Padilla Mitchell share a new story and have great conversations with the writers, many of whom are in fact not writers by trade. We have excerpts from best selling novels, memoirs, poetry award winners, songwriters, stay at home moms, insurance brokers, teachers, actors, college students and beyond. Some famous. Some not at all. But they all have incredible tales to tell.Story is in our DNA. It's how we make sense of the world around us. We have so much to teach each other. We welcome you to rate and review us.
Find out more about us at www.ifitsnot1thingitsyourmother.com

Wednesday Jun 12, 2019
Richard Valenza Mother of a Story - The Secret
Wednesday Jun 12, 2019
Wednesday Jun 12, 2019
When a mother's reaction is disappointing, is not the support you were needing or hoping for, remember to keep a window open in your relationship because, one day she may just surprise you.
We’re telling stories
Rich Valenza is our guest today. He is the Founder and CEO of RaiseAChild,a national nonprofit organization building loving families for foster children®.
RaiseAChild recruits, educates, and nurtures supportive relationships equally with all prospective foster and adoptive parents while partnering with agencies to improve the process of advancing the nations 437,000 foster children to safe, loving and permanent homes. In its six-year history, RaiseAChild has engaged more than 8,500 prospective parents across the country.
In establishing RaiseAChild, Rich has drawn on more than 25 years’ success in marketing and development for broadcast media and nonprofit organizations. He has used his expertise in working with leading national and international corporations to form strategic partnerships with community service agencies, national and regional LGBTQ organizations, and businesses to build RaiseAChild’s strength and influence. Rich serves as a member of the Adoption Exchange Association’s Board of Directors.
If it's not 1 Thing, explores the topic of 'mother' from every angle imaginable and some you have not thought of. Each week, hosts Katie Mitchell and Lupe Padilla Mitchell share a new story and have great conversations with the writers, many of whom are in fact not writers by trade. We have excerpts from best selling novels, memoirs, poetry award winners, songwriters, stay at home moms, insurance brokers, teachers, actors, college students and beyond. Some famous. Some not at all. But they all have incredible tales to tell. Story is in our DNA. It's how we make sense of the world around us. We have so much to teach each other. We welcome you to rate and review us.
Follow us on social media or on our website

Wednesday May 01, 2019
Evie Gold Mother of a Story - When Things are the Same, But Not at All
Wednesday May 01, 2019
Wednesday May 01, 2019
Life is complicated and communication can often feel like a tightrope walk. Taking your mom off the pedestal you have put her on and seeing her as a human being, flaws and all, is part of growing up. And learning to navigate the ups and downs of all meaningful relationships is one of the things we talk about this week.
(We also discuss Rosie Waterland's podcast Mum says My Memoir is a Lie - highly recommend!)
EVIE GOLD is a non-fiction essayist whose personal stories focus on love, family, and anecdotes she collects from life and her daily observations. Evie is a graduate of the Writer’s Studio at SFU in Vancouver and is currently working on her first memoir. She and her husband share a nomadic lifestyle and try to move every couple of years, so home is more of a mindset, not a physical space.
Website: www.eviegold.com
Twitter: @eviegold
Instagram: @eviegold
If it's not 1 Thing, explores the topic of 'mother' from every angle imaginable and some you have not thought of. Each week, hosts Katie Mitchell and Lupe Padilla Mitchell share a new story and have great conversations with the writers, many of whom are in fact not writers by trade. We have excerpts from best selling novels, memoirs, poetry award winners, songwriters, stay at home moms, insurance brokers, teachers, actors, college students and beyond. Some famous. Some not at all. But they all have incredible tales to tell. Story is in our DNA. It's how we make sense of the world around us. We have so much to teach each other. We welcome you to rate and review us.
Follow us on social media or on our website. Links below

Wednesday Apr 10, 2019
Linda Freund Mother of a Story - Tripping with Mom
Wednesday Apr 10, 2019
Wednesday Apr 10, 2019
Here’s a question we are curious about: Do you teach your kids how to party responsibly? Did your mom teach you? Shouldn't we talk about how to parent when it comes to teens’ drinking and drug use? We all know that "just say no" is neither an effective nor a realistic tactic.
Today’s story opens up an honest conversation about drugs, alcohol, teens and our roles as mothers.
Linda Freund shares her day of mushroom trippin' with Bonnie, her mom. And she looks back fondly on the lessons she learned.
Linda Freund is an aspiring novelist, filmmaker and award-winning multimedia journalist based in Barcelona, Spain. She previously worked as a senior video journalist for The Wall Street Journal.
website: www.lblakemedia.com
twitter: @StoryFreund
If it's not 1 Thing, explores the topic of 'mother' from every angle imaginable and some you have not thought of. Each week, hosts Katie Mitchell and Lupe Padilla Mitchell share a new story and have great conversations with the writers, many of whom are in fact not writers by trade. We have excerpts from best selling novels, memoirs, poetry award winners, songwriters, stay at home moms, insurance brokers, teachers, actors, college students and beyond. Some famous. Some not at all. But they all have incredible tales to tell. Story is in our DNA. It's how we make sense of the world around us. We have so much to teach each other. We welcome you to rate and review us.
Follow us on social media or on our website
*this story was originally pubished on Medium.com

Wednesday Apr 03, 2019
Chanel Brenner Mother of a Story - Navigating Loss
Wednesday Apr 03, 2019
Wednesday Apr 03, 2019
Life is a beautiful thing if you can navigate all the loss. Once your child dies you’re still their mother. In this episode our guest shares the death of her 6 year old son and her journey of navigating that loss.
Chanel Brenner shares how she listened and trusted her inner voice, “You know how to survive the loss of your child. Everyone has their own grief journey.” She reminds us to be respectful of each others grief process. Putting boundaries around grief, helped her marriage survive such loss
Chanel Brenner is the author of Vanilla Milk: a memoir told in poems, (Silver Birch Press, 2014), which was a finalist for the 2016 Independent Book Awards and honorable mention in the 2014 Eric Hoffer awards. Her poems have appeared in New Ohio Review, Poet Lore, Rattle, Muzzle Magazine, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Spry Literary Journal, Barrow Street, Salamander, Spoon River Poetry Review, Literary Mama, and others. Her poem, “July 28th, 2012” won first prize in The Write Place At the Write Time’s contest, judged by Ellen Bass. In 2018, she was nominated for a Best of the Net.
https://www.amazon.com/Vanilla-Milk-Memoir-Told-Poems/dp/0692267476
http://www.literarymama.com/poetry/archives/2019/03/mother-trucker.html
https://www.facebook.com/chanelbrennerauthor/
Grief Haven is an online community for people traveling the path of grief.
https://griefhaven.org/
If it's not 1 Thing, explores the topic of 'mother' from every angle imaginable andsome you have not thought of. Each week, hosts Katie Mitchell and Lupe Padilla Mitchell share a new story and have great conversations with the writers, many of whom are in fact not writers by trade. We have excerpts from best selling novels, memoirs, poetry award winners, songwriters, stay at home moms, insurance brokers, teachers, actors, college students and beyond. Some famous. Some not at all. But they all have incredible tales to tell. Story is in our DNA. It's how we make sense of the world around us. We have so much to teach each other. We welcome you to rate and review us.
Follow us on social media or on our website
I Have Two Times the Love for One Child, by Chanel Brenner
*This poem was first published in Snapdragon, Journal of art and healing in June, 2015

Wednesday Mar 27, 2019
Parker Lulu Sacavitch Mother of a Story - A Different Teenage Mother Story
Wednesday Mar 27, 2019
Wednesday Mar 27, 2019
A take on motherhood from a girl who is just entering womanhood. What happens when you are a teen, terrified to leave the nest and go to college? You create your comfort zone, your college family.
Parker Sacavitch is a college freshman at Emerson College in Boston. She's currently studying screenwriting, but she's tried writing everything from angsty poetry to horoscopes and everything in between. Her goal is to one day work in the world of children's animated television.
You can follow Parker on Instagram is @babyimtheshed and she hosts a radio show on WECB Saturdays from 8-9 eastern time where she reviews movies
If it's not 1 Thing, explores the topic of 'mother' from every angle imaginable and some you have not thought of. Each week, hosts Katie Mitchell and Lupe Padilla Mitchell share a new story and have great conversations with the writers, many of whom are in fact not writers by trade. We have excerpts from best selling novels, memoirs, poetry award winners, songwriters, stay at home moms, insurance brokers, teachers, actors, college students and beyond. Some famous. Some not at all. But they all have incredible tales to tell. Story is in our DNA. It's how we make sense of the world around us. We have so much to teach each other. We welcome you to rate and review us.
Follow us on social media or on our website

Wednesday Mar 20, 2019
Dan Moore Mother of a Story - His Mom is a Star
Wednesday Mar 20, 2019
Wednesday Mar 20, 2019
The power of letting the ones you love, know what they mean to you is what we are talking about in this episode. Sometimes our children see us as whole humans and not just “Mom”. And that exchange deepens and enriches the relationship.
Dan Moore is a writer based in San Francisco. His work has appeared in many places online. He is also editor of the online magazines P.S. I Love You, The Bold Italic, and Minutes. You can follow him on Twitter @dmowriter and read more of his writing here.
If it's not 1 Thing, explores the topic of 'mother' from every angle imaginable and some you have not thought of. Each week, hosts Katie Mitchell and Lupe Padilla Mitchell share a new story and have great conversations with the writers, many of whom are in fact not writers by trade. We have excerpts from best selling novels, memoirs, poetry award winners, songwriters, stay at home moms, insurance brokers, teachers, actors, college students and beyond. Some famous. Some not at all. But they all have incredible tales to tell. Story is in our DNA. It's how we make sense of the world around us. We have so much to teach each other. We welcome you to rate and review us.
Follow us on social media or on our website

Wednesday Mar 13, 2019
Tanya Davis Mother of a Story - Patterns Repeating... or not
Wednesday Mar 13, 2019
Wednesday Mar 13, 2019
We’re telling stories
We talk about the sadnesses that can be passed on to our children. Or sadness of our mother's that we sometimes take on as our own. How do we ease a burden and not take it on ourselves? Eternal questions.
Tanya Davis is a writer, performer, and musician currently based in Montréal, Québec. She has released 4 albums and 2 books of poetry, including an illustrated version of the widely popular video poem on YouTube, How to be Alone (made in collaboration with Andrea Dorfman). She is past Poet Laureate of Halifax, Nova Scotia where she was also Artist in Residence at Dalhousie University's Faculty of Medicine. She is currently at work on a new collection of poems.
If it's not 1 Thing, explores the topic of 'mother' from every angle imaginable and some you have not thought of. Each week, hosts Lupe Padilla Mitchell and Katie Mitchell share a new story and have great conversations with the writers, many of whom are in fact not writers by trade. We have excerpts from best selling novels, memoirs, poetry award winners, songwriters, stay at home moms, insurance brokers, teachers, actors, college students and beyond. Some famous. Some not at all. But they all have incredible tales to tell. Story is in our DNA. It's how we make sense of the world around us. We have so much to teach each other. We welcome you to rate and review us.
Follow us on social media or our website www.ifitsnot1thingitsyourmother.com

Wednesday Mar 06, 2019
Jennifer Hamm Mother of a Story - Embracing the Space Between Us
Wednesday Mar 06, 2019
Wednesday Mar 06, 2019
We’re telling stories
Jennifer Hamm’s story is about learning to raise the child she was given. Her second son was not like her first. She and her husband needed to figure out how to understand him and how to parent him. Through this process she discovered that his emotional intelligence exceeded his ability to articulate and communicate what he was feeling. She shares how she and her husband had to go to therapy so they could get on the same page to effectively parent this son.
As mothers we tend to pad the corners, we are peacemakers so we find ourselves interpreting our your kids to you husband and your husband to your kids.
Writer Jennifer Hamm is from Beverly Hills and has lived between LA and London since 1994. She began writing over 30 years ago in the worlds of film, tv, blogs, travel and now novels. She is a mother to four boys… and her husband.
www.itsonlyforayear.com is a blog about raising her boys between two countries and all the wonderful chaos that comes with motherhood.
If it's not 1 Thing, explores the topic of 'mother' from every angle imaginable and some you have not thought of. Each week, hosts Lupe Padilla Mitchell and Katie Mitchell share a new story and have great conversations with the writers, many of whom are in fact not writers by trade. We have excerpts from best selling novels, memoirs, poetry award winners, songwriters, stay at home moms, insurance brokers, teachers, actors, college students and beyond. Some famous. Some not at all. But they all have incredible tales to tell. Story is in our DNA. It's how we make sense of the world around us. We have so much to teach each other. We welcome you to rate and review us.
Follow us on social media or on our website

Wednesday Feb 20, 2019
Tess Wheeler Mother of a Story - Mother Courage
Wednesday Feb 20, 2019
Wednesday Feb 20, 2019
We’re telling stories
Tess Wheeler went to school in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, and read English Literature at the University of York. After working as a financial editor in Hong Kong and London, she eventually surrendered to the pull of the beautiful Northumberland coast and returned home. Tess writes short stories and non-fiction articles for Medium and in 2017 she completed the first draft of her children’s novel, Codename Granbag. Two of her stories are included in anthologies called Starting Out and Fire, available on Amazon, and a compilation of her short fiction is due out before the end of 2018. She is currently finishing a second novel, Darkling Ford.
Tess is married with four children, three of whom have grown up and flown the nest. To fill the void left by diminishing ironing and housework, she is forced to spend her spare time writing, reading, beach-walking and wine-drinking.
https://medium.com/@tesswheeler_22562
If it's not 1 Thing, explores the topic of 'mother' from every angle imaginable and some you have not thought of. Each week,hosts Katie Mitchell and Lupe Padilla Mitchell share a new story and have great conversations with the writers, many of whom are in fact not writers by trade. We have excerpts from best selling novels, memoirs, poetry award winners, songwriters, stay at home moms, insurance brokers, teachers, actors, college students and beyond. Some famous. Some not at all. But they all have incredible tales to tell. Story is in our DNA. It's how we make sense of the world around us. We have so much to teach each other. We welcome you to rate and review us.
Follow us on social media or on our website

Friday Feb 15, 2019
Bird Sizelove Mother of a Story - 3 Stages of Parenting
Friday Feb 15, 2019
Friday Feb 15, 2019
We’re telling stories
Bird Sizelove is the lucky mother to her son Boston Powers- 25.5. She refers to him as her "voodoo-doll" because when he's cool, she's cool.... when he's not, she's not.
Bird has been writing poetry from bar napkins to lap tops all through her course with her hands on work with everyone from gang members, to cancer support to Oscar winners. All the while seeing the poetry in it all.
If it's not 1 Thing, explores the topic of 'mother' from every angle imaginable and some you have not thought of. Each week, hosts Katie Mitchell and Lupe Padilla Mitchell share a new story and have great conversations with the writers, many of whom are in fact not writers by trade. We have excerpts from best selling novels, memoirs, poetry award winners, songwriters, stay at home moms, insurance brokers, teachers, actors, college students and beyond. Some famous. Some not at all. But they all have incredible tales to tell. Story is in our DNA. It's how we make sense of the world around us. We have so much to teach each other. We welcome you to rate and review us.
Follow us on social media or on our website

Wednesday Nov 21, 2018
Ep 00 Trailer - If it's Not One Thing, It's your Mother
Wednesday Nov 21, 2018
Wednesday Nov 21, 2018
We're telling stories. If it's not 1 Thing, explores the topic of 'mother' from every angle imaginable and some you have not thought of. Each week, hosts Katie Mitchell and Lupe Padilla Mitchell share a new story and have great conversations with the writers, many of whom are in fact not writers by trade. We have excerpts from best selling novels, memoirs, poetry award winners and songwriters, to stay at home moms, insurance brokers, teachers, actors, college students and beyond. Some famous. Some not at all. But they all have incredible tales to tell. Find more about us at Insta @ifitsnot1thingitsyourmother and facebook.com/ifitsnot1thingitsyourmother and twitter @katie_mitchll