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 Jul 17, 2019
Tresha Faye Haefner Mother of a Story - Paradise, California II
Wednesday Jul 17, 2019
Wednesday Jul 17, 2019
Tresha Faye Haefner shares with us a poem about her childhood in paradise California. We talk about the wants and rebellion of youth and how when you’re a kid with the security of a loving family, you don’t have the life experience to appreciate just how lucky you are.
She also shares how one should listen to a poem.
Several of our brilliant guests came to us through Tresha - Alexis Rhone Fancher (Cruel Choices ep 6) Elya Braden (How to Be a Bad Mother ep 8), and Kelly Grace Thomas (How the Body is Passed Down ep 9)
Tresha Faye Haefner is a writer, editor, workshop-facilitator, and founder of The Poetry Salon, Los Angeles where she uses her rich knowledge to guide other writers into accessing their authentic, creative voice. She spent ten years teaching English, Social Studies and Creative Writing in private schools, before receiving an M.A. Degree in Humanistic Psychology, with a specialization in creativity studies, from Saybrook University. She has been an active member and teacher at California Poets in the Schools, helped to curate the CPITS Anthology of Lesson Plans, Poetry Crossing, and has been a grant recipient through the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs Artist-In-Residence program.
Outside traditional academy instruction, Tresha has learned at the feet of established, innovative poets such as Kim Addonizio, Sally Ashton, Ellen Bass, Gabrielle Calvacoressi, Brendan Constantine, Matthew Dickman, Jack Grapes, Suzanne Lummis, Eloise Klein Healy, Naomi Shihab-Nye, and founder of the Poetry Depths Mystery School, Kim Rosen. Her own work has been published in several journals, including BloodLotus, The Cincinnati Review Fourth River, Hunger Mountain, Pirene’s Fountain, Poet Lore, Prairie Schooner, and Rattle. She is the recipient of the 2011 Robert and Adele Schiff Poetry Prize, a 2015 Pushcart nominee, and author of the chapbook Take This Longing from Finishing Line Press. She continues to read widely, attend regular readings and workshops, and learn from every poet she meets.
Currently Tresha lives in Los Angeles, where she is founder of The Poetry Salon, a thriving artistic community that all levels of expertise, who can choose between one-day writing workshops, online e-classes and in-depth advanced core classes. Participants showcase their work four times a year at cumulative class readings, and those women and men have gone on to publish award-winning, cutting-edge work and even teach creative writing classes of their very own.
All of her offerings are on her website www.thepoetrysalon.com where you can subscribe to the blog and other announcements with the button at the bottom of the home page. There's also our just-released e-course How to Think Like a Poet
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, 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 Jun 05, 2019
Gina Piccalo Mother of a Story - Silver Linings
Wednesday Jun 05, 2019
Wednesday Jun 05, 2019
We learn so much from our children. In this episode, Gina Piccalo reads from her not yet published memoir. When you had a troubled childhood and your daughter wants you to tell her bedtime stories from that time, how do you play it?
In this touching story, Gina talks about the gift of seeing her story through her daughter's eyes, and the healing that has since taken place with her relationship with her own mother.
Gina Piccalo spent a decade on staff at the Los Angeles Times covering Hollywood. Her work has also appeared in Emmy Magazine, The Daily Beast, Los Angeles Magazine and The Atlanta Journal Constitution. In 2017, she completed her memoir, "The Mother Ache." Now a counseling astrologer based in Nashville with her daughter and husband, she can be reached at GinaPiccaloAstrology.com.
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.
Wednesday May 22, 2019
Clay Rivers Mother of a Story - excerpt from Walking Tall
Wednesday May 22, 2019
Wednesday May 22, 2019
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 Jan 23, 2019
Jon Wise Mother of a Story - A Mother Obscured - a different kind of ghost story
Wednesday Jan 23, 2019
Wednesday Jan 23, 2019
"To begin with, this is not a story about my mother. She and I were not to enter the picture for a number of years. It’s another mother's story- of a ghost, a shadowy presence that moved along the distant edges of my childhood, whose memory was in the custody of others reluctant to part with it or even let it see the light of day." -Jon Wise
Jon Wise lives in Metairie, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans, with his wife Gail and their Australian terrier Owen. He has called the Crescent City home for most of his life and is grateful that he could; though he retains an affinity for the northwest part of the state and the stories it contains. A lawyer by trade, Jon has often turned to writing as both a creative outlet and a way of coming to terms with the world and his brief place in it. He has published poetry and short stories in literary reviews in Louisiana and Arkansas.
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
www.ifitsnot1thingitsyourmother.com
Sunday Jan 13, 2019
Cathie Borrie Mother of a Story - A different dementia story
Sunday Jan 13, 2019
Sunday Jan 13, 2019
We’re telling stories
Cathie Borrie, is our guest. She reads from her family memoir, the long Hello ~ memory, my mother, and me. Cathie Borrie finds magic and poetry in her mother’s language during her phase with Alzheimers. Find out the important lessons she has to teach us all, about the human experience and caregiving and the gift dementia makes possible.
Cathie received high praise from writers Maya Angelou and Lisa Genova. She is graduate of the Writer’s Studio at SFU in Vancouver, and is currently sculpting a poem from each of the 156 original folk and fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm (translated by Jack Zipes).
“In many situations that are difficult and challenging, there’s always magic and always beauty.” Cathie Borrie interview, podcast If it’s Not 1 Thing, it’s Your Mother
the long Hello ~ memory, my mother, and me is published by Simon and Schuster in Canada, and Arcade (Skyhorse Publications) in the U.S.
Web site: http://www.cathieborrie.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cathie.borrie/
Twitter: @cathieborrie
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
www.ifitsnot1thingitsyourmother.com
Thursday Jan 10, 2019
Kelly Grace Thomas Mother of a Story - How The Body Is Passed Down.
Thursday Jan 10, 2019
Thursday Jan 10, 2019
We're telling stories.
Kelly Grace Thomas, is our guest today. We are discussing body image, how it is passed down through the generations, and what we're teaching our kids about it, especially in our silent moments. We also explore when it is that parts of us begin to die. All because of the 2 poems that Kelly Grace reads for us today.
Kelly Grace Thomas is the winner of the 2017 Neil Postman Award for Metaphor from Rattle, a finalist for the Rita Dove Poetry Award, a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and Best of the Next nominee. BOAT/BURNED, her first full-length collection, is forthcoming from YesYes Books. Kelly’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in: The Los Angeles Review, DIAGRAM, Tinderbox, Nashville Review, Sixth Finch, Muzzle, PANK and more. . Kelly currently works to bring poetry to underserved youth as the Manager of Education and Pedagogy for Get Lit-Words Ignite. She is also the co-author of Words Ignite: Explore, Write and Perform, Classic and Spoken Word Poetry (Literary Riot). She lives in the Bay Area with her husband. For more please visit www.kellygracethomas.com
If it's not 1 Thing, explores the topic of mother from every angle imaginable and some you have not thought of. Each week, we 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.
www.ifitsnot1thingitsyourmother.com
Monday Dec 10, 2018
Anonymous Mother of a Story - Her Mother Can Never Know
Monday Dec 10, 2018
Monday Dec 10, 2018
We're telling stories.
Today’s guest is a best selling novelist and an all around wonderful writer. She wrote a beautiful piece for this podcast and then called us with a special request-- that we keep her identity anonymous.
Who doesn't speak to their mother?
What do you do when you have a toxic relationship with your mom? When the mother you want, is not the mother you have? When you are looking for courage or permission to put your well-being first, to live in your truth? What do you do when you don't want to hurt your mom, but continuing the relationship you two have set up is making you miserable? What lesson will you teach your kids if you disconnect? Or on the flip side, what will you teach them if you don't?
Self-love is not a bad word.
Life lessons are all around us. And one big lesson to be learned from today’s show is, ‘the way a mother handles her divorce can make or break her relationship with her children going forward’.
Every nugget of wisdom that can save us time along our journey of self awareness, in our effort to evolve into a higher self, is of value. And this episode is chocked full of those nuggets.
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 out more about us at:
www.ifitsnot1thingitsyourmother.com
on Facebook and Instagram @ifitsnot1thingitsyourmother or on twitter @IfNot1Thing
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