Only One In The Room

Imagine being the queer, plus-sized, gender non-conforming child of a Black father and a Filipino mother. Writer, director, performance artist, and actor, Roger Q. Mason, grew up in Los Angeles, feeling grateful that their parents followed the way of love and challenged their family's prejudices. But what would you do if the world you lived in fell short of its potential? Would you give up on your...

Sadie Sutton is a 19-year-old college sophomore from the Bay Area. After receiving a year and a half of intensive treatment for severe depression and anxiety, she was inspired to share her story with fellow teens going through their own personal growth. She started She Persisted (formerly Nevertheless, She Persisted) in 2019 and has accumulated over 105 episodes reaching over 75,000 listeners. Sad...

We’re sharing a special episode from another podcast, A Slight Change of Plans, from Pushkin Industries. In this preview, civil rights icon Ruby Bridges shares what it was like to be the first African-American student to attend an all-white elementary school in Louisiana in 1960. Ruby was just six years old at the time, and it would be years before she fully appreciated her role in advancing civil...

Scott Slaughter co-host and producer of The Only One In The Room has a short and casual, yet deep conversation with our guest Chas Allen right after the show. Special thanks to our sponsors: Prose: Prose Custom Styling Gel lets you curl outside the lines. Take your FREE in-depth hair consultation and get 15% off your customized gel (and your ENTIRE order) today! Go to prose.com/one.   PATREON SHOU...

What if while in college, you had an opportunity to make four million dollars, and all you had to do was drive the getaway car? At age nineteen, author, coach, teacher and speaker, Chas Allen, joined three of his friends who were planning what the FBI calls one of the all-time most significant art theft cases, The Transylvania Book Heist. So what would you do the robbery’s trial run proved to be a...

Madhushree Ghosh’s work is focused on food, immigrant journeys, and social justice in particular, about women-of-color-in-science. She works in oncology diagnostics and her debut food narrative memoir, Khabaar: An Immigrant Journey of Food, Memory, and Family was published earlier this year. Website: writemadhushree.com Instagram: @writemadhushree Twitter: @WriteMadhushree Read Khabaar: An Immigra...

Richie Stephens is an actor who often plays hardened gangsters and criminals. This comes easily for Stephens, as at one point in his life, he was a drug trafficker, kidnapper, drug addict, and alcoholic. For a long time, his life was the classic tale of a man trying to run from his past. John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky are screenwriters who co-created and executive produced the Emmy-winning serie...

Scott Slaughter co-host and producer of The Only One In The Room has a short and casual, yet deep conversation with our guest Richie Stephens right after the show. Special thanks to our sponsors: Framebridge It’s so easy - frame your photos or send someone the perfect gift. Go to Framebridge.com and use promo code ONE to save an additional 15% off your first order.   PATREON SHOUT OUTS: Mercedes C...

Imagine joining a gang because they had the best cocaine. Actor, Richie Stephens moved from Ireland to San Francisco and became the only white, Irish guy in an all Asian gang. But what would you do if you if the drugs and the booze took over, and started to come before everything you loved? Would you put a gun to your head and end it all? Or would you call the guy who said, “If ya ever want to get...

Digital activist and veteran podcaster, Bridget Todd, who is the CEO of Unbossed Creative and host of the iHeart radio smash hit podcast, There Are No GIrls On The Internet. Bridget got her start teaching courses on writing and social change at Howard University. Since then, she's trained human rights activists in Australia, coordinated digital strategy for organizations like Planned Parenthood, t...

Scott Slaughter co-host and producer of The Only One In The Room has a short and casual, yet deep conversation with our guest Rafael Agustin right after the show. PATREON SHOUT OUTS: Mercedes Cusick LMFT, Website: www.mercedescusick.com, IG: @recoverhealbloom Check Out How To Do The Pot Thanks to Kathleen Hahn Cute Booty Lounge is made right here in the USA, by women and for women. The company is...

What if, even though you’d moved to the US at age six from Ecuador, you grew up thinking you were like every other American boy? Author, screenwriter and CEO, Rafael Agustin modeled his childhood after the Hollywood TV shows he loved, Batman, Saved By The Bell, Friends and more. But what would you do if your parents told you that you were undocumented and the life that you’d been living was actual...

Season fourteen guest, Sonora Jha, Ph. D., is an essayist, novelist, and professor of journalism at Seattle University. She is the author of the memoir How to Raise a Feminist Son: Motherhood, Masculinity, and the Making of My Family (Sasquatch Books USA and Penguin Random House India, 2021) and the novel Foreign (Random House India 2013). Her op-eds and essays have appeared in the New York Times,...

Scott Slaughter co-host and producer of The Only One In The Room has a short and casual, yet deep conversation with our guest Civilla Morgan right after the show. Special thanks to our sponsors: Thrive: Thrive Causemetics is a best-selling product, it has more than 20,000 five-star reviews. They also have over 300 giving partners across the country supporting numerous causes. Now is a great time t...

Imagine being in your twenties and finding out that you have a condition that might prevent you from becoming pregnant. Civilla Morgan, author, blogger, and host/creator of the podcast, Childless Not By Choice, found herself getting three surgeries in the hopes that she would be able to conceive and carry children. But what would you do, if despite all of your efforts, you were not able to have th...

Andrea Owen is an author, global speaker, and professional certified life coach who helps high-achieving women maximize unshakeable confidence and master resilience. She has taught hundreds of thousands of women tools and strategies to be able to empower themselves to live their most kick-ass life through speaking, her books, coaching and her wildly popular podcast with over 3 million downloads. S...

Scott Slaughter co-host and producer of The Only One In The Room has a short and casual, yet deep conversation with our guest Kiese Laymon right after the show. Special thanks to our sponsors: Prose Custom Styling Gel lets you curl outside the lines.  Take your FREE in-depth hair consultation and get 15% off your customized gel (and your ENTIRE order) today! Go to prose.com/one.  PATREON SHOUT OUT...

Picture this: You have a book to write, a memoir which contains so much raw truth that you'd rather write a lie instead. Writer, author, and professor, Kiese Laymon, wrote about the weight: The weight of racism, the weight of obesity, and the weight of sex, gambling, and familial love. And addressed the whole thing to his mother. But what would you do if publishing your book would mean naming all...

Dr. Debi Silber is the founder of the PBT (Post Betrayal Transformation) Institute and is a holistic psychologist, health, mindset, and personal development expert, the author of Trust Again, and is a 2-time #1 International bestselling author of: The Unshakable Woman AND From Hardened to Healed: The Effortless Path to Release Resistance, Get Unstuck and Create a Life You Love. Her podcast: From B...

Trigger Warning: The following episode contains conversations about sexual abuse. Scott Slaughter co-host and producer of The Only One In The Room has a short and casual, yet deep conversation with our guest Kelly Wallace right after the show. Special thanks to our sponsors: Framebridge It’s so easy - frame your photos or send someone the perfect gift. Go to Framebridge.com and use promo code ONE...

Trigger Warning: The following episode contains conversations about sexual abuse. Picture this: You are a child, only eight years old, and because the court won’t allow your parents in with you, you enter a courtroom alone, to testify against the grandfather who molested you. Kelly Wallace, Writer, memoirist, and co-host of the Zoom reading series, Voices Of Survivors, remembers seeing the bailiff...

SONORA JHA, PhD, is an essayist, novelist, and professor of journalism at Seattle University. She is the author of the memoir How to Raise a Feminist Son: Motherhood, Masculinity, and the Making of My Family (Sasquatch Books USA and Penguin Random House India, 2021) and the novel Foreign (Random House India 2013). Her op-eds and essays have appeared in the New York Times, the Seattle Times, The Es...

Scott Slaughter co-host and producer of The Only One In The Room has a short and casual, yet deep conversation with our guests Myrina and Tristan right after the show. Special thanks to our sponsors: Framebridge It’s so easy - frame your photos or send someone the perfect gift. Go to Framebridge.com and use promo code ONE to save an additional 15% off your first order.   PATREON SHOUT OUTS: Merced...

What if after twenty-someting years of marriage, when you and your partner were both in your fifties, you would sometimes talk about having sex with other people?  Myrina and Tristan, hosts of The Accidental Swingers Podcast, had a flirtatious relationship with their friends who lived down the street, but one night it shifted from flirting to kissing. So what would you do if you and your spouse se...

Upcoming guest, Madhushree Ghosh, works in oncology diagnostics, and is a social justice activist. Her work has been awarded a Notable Mention in Best American Essays in Food Writing and a Pushcart Prize nomination. She is the author of the beautiful memoir, Khabaar, An Immigrant Journey of Food, Memory, and Family. Website: writemadhushree.com Instagram: @writemadhushree Twitter: @WriteMadhushree...