Let's Grab Coffee

Episode Notes While We Were Burning is a domestic thriller set in Memphis examining the intersection of race, class, and female friendship, and the devastating consequences of everyday actions. On today’s show I'm joined by Memphis native and author, Sara Koffi, to discuss her debut novel.   Sara Koffi is a writer and editor from Memphis, Tennessee, with a BA in English from Whittier College. As a...

Episode Notes When was the first time you saw yourself represented on screen? An actor or actress who looked like you? For better or worse, media shapes how we think about ourselves and others and often fills in the gap when we don’t have first-hand experience with certain situations, circumstances, or groups of people. For me, as an Asian American woman growing up in the 90s, Asian Americans were...

Episode Notes Currently there are over 22 million Asians across the US representing a range of ethnic groups originating in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. Yet, oftentimes, the ways we think of Asian American history is tethered to the East and West Coasts. But Asians in America have a long history in the Deep South, a history that has garnered growing attention. Documentar...

Episode Notes A key part of Memphis history is its role in the Civil Rights Movement, particularly with the Sanitation Workers Strike that brought Dr. Martin Luther King Jr to Memphis and his untimely death. Like the city itself, the story of Civil Rights activism is often presented through a Black-White lens. Yet, Asians and Asian Americans have been in the South since at least the late 1700s and...

Episode Notes Episode Notes We spend a lot of our time on the road, commuting to work, running errands, meeting up with friends and family. In fact, maybe you’ll listen to this episode while you’re on the road. For all the possibilities that roads open up for us, it’s not without a cost. To talk more about how roads impact our lives – and the lives around us – for better and for worse, today I’m j...

Episode Notes Memphis goes by many names – Home of the Blues, BBQ Capital, and the Bluff City. The last one a reference to our location on the Bluffs of the Mighty Mississippi River. But how much do you know about the muddy waters flowing in our backyard? Today I’m joined by Boyce Upholt, author of The Great River: The Making and Unmaking of the Mississippi. We talk about our own personal relation...

Episode Notes “Boys don’t cry.” “Man up.” “Emotions are a sign of weakness.” These common sayings shape how we think about emotions, who can have them, and what type of emotional displays are acceptable. Although 1 in 5 adults experience a mental health problem each year, men are less likely than women to seek mental health services due to societal norms, traditional gender roles, stigma, and limi...

Episode Notes I love a good cup of coffee, but if I'm being honest, I never really gave much thought to where my coffee came from or the history of this delicious beverage itself. That was until I learned about Cxffeeblack, a Memphis-owned coffee company, and its associated Anti-Gentrification Coffee Club. Founded in 2019, by husband and wife team, Bartholomew Jones and Renata Henderson, Cxffeebla...

Episode Notes May is Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month, a nationally recognized heritage month established in 1992 to celebrate the histories, cultures, and contributions of Asians in America. Currently there are over 22 million Asians across the US representing a range of ethnic groups originating in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. Yet, oftentimes, the w...

Episode Notes This year I had the honor of moderating a panel conversation at SXSW featuring Dominic Lawson, Leta McCollough Seletzky, and Chassidy Jade. You may remember Dominic from our February feature of his multi-award winning podcast, Black is America. Leta was a previous guest (Ep 97) discussing her book The Kneeling Man: My Father's Life as a Black Spy Who Witnessed the Assassination of Ma...

Episode Notes Around the world, coffee is part of countless cultures’ daily routine. Perhaps your day starts with brewing a cup at home or grabbing your daily fix on the way to work. In fact, coffee is a global industry worth $495 billion per year but less than 1% of this revenue returns to people of African descent, who are the originators of coffee, or to African countries, where the majority of...

Episode Notes Today is a special feature - a panel conversation I organized for SXSW featuring creatives discussing how to maintain your creative voice and vision. Social media turned creativity into content and artists into content creators. But, what if you have something more to say beyond recycling trends and presenting a carefully curated social media feed? How do you tell an entertaining, in...

Episode Notes This month Let’s Grab Coffee features conversation with Dominic Lawson, host and creator of the award-winning Black Is America podcast. On today’s show, Dominic and I talk about the importance of storytelling - how we tell stories and the stories we tell. We listen to a very special award-winning episode of Black Is America highlighting Memphis's own, Tom Lee: The Everyday American H...

Episode Notes This month Let’s Grab Coffee features conversation with Dominic Lawson, host and creator of the award-winning Black Is America podcast. On today’s show, Dominic and I reflect on how the past is ever present - on an individual and society level - but we can only connect the dots looking backwards. We also listen to a jaw-dropping episode of Black Is America highlighting Doris Miller:...

Episode Notes This month Let’s Grab Coffee features conversation with Dominic Lawson, host and creator of the award-winning Black Is America podcast. On today’s show, Dominic and I talk about the importance of courage. Dominic also drops some invaluable tips for current and future podcasters. We also listen to absolutely captivating Black Is America episode about Henry Johnson: The First American...

Episode Notes This month Let’s Grab Coffee features conversation with Dominic Lawson, host and creator of the award-winning Black Is America podcast. On today’s show, Dominic and I talk about Black Is America and the importance of storytelling. We also listen to the Black Is America episode about Sylvia Robinson: The Godmother of Hip Hop.   The Black Is America podcast highlights little-known Afri...

Episode Notes Today’s episode of Let’s Grab Coffee is a special show featuring the Conversation Piece podcast with Patrick Armstrong. I’m sitting on the other side of the microphone while Patrick interviews me about my new book, Out of Place: The Lives of Korean Adoptee Immigrants. While I’m normally the one interviewing authors about their books and what they know about the world around us, I wan...

Episode Notes How is it that seemingly everyone – from liberals to conservatives, to celebrities, social media trolls, and your least favorite family member – has a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr quote or Civil Rights Movement reference at the ready? How is it that such disparate groups with various interests find meaning and support for their causes in Dr. King’s words? How is it that they can lay cla...

Episode Notes It's the start of a new year, and unsurprisingly one of the most reported New Year Resolutions is fitness-related. According to a survey from Forbes Health/One Poll, respondents most frequently cited improved fitness as a goal. Every day we are bombarded with messaging from media, advertisers, friends, and family about what our bodies should look like and how we can take control of o...

Episode Notes Let’s Grab Coffee kicks off the new year with friend of the show, Dr. Justin K Dodson. As always, he gives us insightful questions to consider and prompts to help us get curious about our wants, needs, and feelings. Looking to make a change this year? Justin offers some practical strategies for following through on your new year goals.   Be sure to check out our previous conversation...

Episode Notes We spend a lot of our time on the road, commuting to work, running errands, meeting up with friends and family. In fact, maybe you’ll listen to this episode while you’re on the road. For all the possibilities that roads open up for us, it’s not without a cost. To talk more about how roads impact our lives – and the lives around us – for better and for worse, today I’m joined by Ben G...

Episode Notes Have you ever expensed a lunch that wasn’t solely a business meeting or maybe added a little extra time on your timesheet? If so, that’s fraud. Fraud is not just identity theft, ponzi schemes, or embezzling millions of dollars. Fraud is all around us and maybe even happening to us without our knowledge. On today’s show, I sit down with Dr. Kelly Richmond Pope author of Fool Me Once:...

Episode Notes In the U.S., we consume about 1 billion gallons of wine annually. Whether you prefer reds, whites, pinks, or bubbles, do you know what’s really in your go-to glass of wine? Wine’s history is filled with tales of deception, and today I sit down with Rebecca Gibb to dive into her latest book, Vintage Crime: A Short History of Wine Fraud . We’ll talk about some of the surprising additio...

Episode Notes November is National Adoption Month, which adoptees have reclaimed as National Adoptee Awareness Month (NAAM). In honor of NAAM, this month on Let's Grab Coffee, I'm featuring conversations with authors of books that center adoptee voices. Who are you and how do you know? Much of our identity begins with our name and our family origin stories, but what happens when the stories you th...

Episode Notes November is National Adoption Month, which adoptees have reclaimed as National Adoptee Awareness Month (NAAM). In honor of NAAM, this month on Let's Grab Coffee, I'm featuring conversations with authors of books that center adoptee voices. According to the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child, everyone has the right to identity, the right to know one’s history and ori...