Something Rather Than Nothing

Listen to Something Rather Than Nothing one of the world's biggest indie podcasts! Explore ways to creativity, paths to philosophy, ideas to transform and introductions to life's most fascinating creators. Find dancers, painters, thinkers, musicians, esoteric conceptualists, physical contortionists, baseball stories, poets, s^xy movers and shakers, movie directors and, maybe, FIND YOURSELF!? Websi...

Rachael Renae   Rachael Renae is an artist, play enthusiast, and creativity hype gal based in Detroit, MI. She helps people prioritize play to overcome creative blocks, better connect with themselves and their people, and confidently live big, fulfilling lives. When  she’s not facilitating play workshops or co-hosting the Chaotic Creatives podcast, she’s likely gabbing with pals over voi...

When a young influencer lands a dog food sponsorship, she recruits her estranged mother to co-star - hoping to turn a work obligation into a chance to reconnect. As she road-trips with her boyfriend toward the visit, anxiety builds while personal and professional pressures blur, culminating in a surreal unravelling.  Interview with STAR Kenny Sale and Star Director MKL. Raindance timely info...

kgmr is a composer, songwriter, keyboardist, field recorder, sampler, and noise maker. kgmr writes for solo piano, rock trio, larger ensembles, and electronic instrumentation. Her music has been used in films, theater, and radio. She appears elsewhere as a guest keyboardist.kgmr started writing and recording music in elementary school using a Casio keyboard, a Magnus organ, and a tape recorder. He...

Influenced by bands like Opeth and Cynic, Cryptic Divination is a unique "second generation" of sounds from '90s death metal to '70s prog rock. Utilizing heavy riffs, clean sections and screams, they embody a new wave of pacific-northwest progressive death metal.

April Fox has been teaching yoga in Portland OR since 2014, and running classes to doom metal since 2016.  🌒Deep Dark Yoga 🌘 is slow, gentle flow to the sludgiest, heaviest tunes you can test your amps to. Great for beginners and “not into yoga” people — perfect for anyone interested in tuning on their mat with an epic soundtrack

Introduction to Lee Upton: I am a multi-genre author, not because I’m polygamous when it comes to genre, but because each genre is addictive and possibly a bit contagious. Along with The Withers and Tabitha, Get Up , I’ve written seven collections of poetry, two short story collections, a novella, four books of literary criticism, and an essay collection. My poetry has appeared widely, including i...

Caledonia Curry, known as Swoon , is a contemporary artist and filmmaker recognized around the world for her pioneering vision of public artwork. Through intimate portraits, immersive installations, and multi-year community based projects, she has spent over 20 years exploring the depths of human complexity, and asking how art can fundamentally re-envision the communities we live in towards a more...

Darrin Doyle was born in Saginaw, Michigan. He has worked as a paperboy, a janitor, a mover, a telemarketer, a door-to-door salesman, a Kinko's Copy Consultant, a porn store clerk, a pizza delivery guy, a prep cook, a magazine store clerk, a technical writer, a freelance newspaper writer, an English teacher in Japan, and finally, a professor and an author. ​Darrin has a brown belt in Tae Kwon Do a...

Art Bar is a thick, coffee table Art Magazine, printed in the U.S. on high quality paper stock. The features are about the lived human experiences of creatives and how they shape our artwork. We are aiming to fill a space in the art world, inspiring both established and emerging artists.

A proud powwow dancer, cultural educator, and fashion visionary, Keeli Littleleaf continues to blaze trails wherever she goes. Known for her signature high-step jingle and fringe style, she embodies power, healing, and movement through every step and every stitch. As the founder of the Northwest/West Coast Indigenous Fashion show & Market and creator of AYAYAT, a fashion line inspired by her I...

Stefan Diethelm is a Swiss and German artist, originally from Uzwil, Switzerland. He fell in love with performing at a young age, was trained in classical voice throughout his teens, and studied musical theatre in Hamburg, Germany. He moved to New York City to further his craft, and studied at the HB Studio under instructors like Lonny Price, Peter Francis James and Theresa McElwee. HB Studio is a...

Crystal Skillman is an internationally award-winning playwright, fictional podcast writer, and comic book author who has written for Stories Podcast (Wondery Kids), Girl Tales, Adventure Time comics, as well as Marvel comics. In addition to Open and The Rocket Men, Crystal is the dramatist of RAIN AND ZOE SAVE THE WORLD (premiered in the UK in 2022) and the NYTimes Critics’ Pick plays GEEK, CUT, a...

Patricia Lynn is a playwright/actor who has worked extensively in NYC independent theatre. As a writer, Patricia fancies herself to be a gothic feminist ; she loves to subvert the classic genre by creating provocative plays inspired by traditional gothic stereotypes. Her plays have been developed at Triad Stage, New Perspectives Theatre Company, The Secret Theatre, Rogue Theater Festival, and Phil...

Victoria Astuto is a musician, composer, videographer, and educator based in the Hudson Valley.  Her debut EP, The Place features clarinet, saxophone, flute, bass clarinet, synthesizers, and vocals to create dreamy, lush, and atmospheric textures.  The album is inspired by a cross country trip she took which influenced many of the themes ranging from loneliness to finding a place in the...

Leanna Renee Hieber is an actress, playwright, ghost tour guide, audiobook narrator and the award-winning, bestselling author of over Gothic, Gaslamp Fantasy, Supernatural Suspense and Non-Fiction books for adults and teens with publishers such as Tor, Sourcebooks and Kensington Books. A Haunted History of Invisible Women: True Stories of America's Ghosts , co-authored with Andrea Janes, was a 202...

Born on the East Coast, and home to the West, Blair Borax’s relationship with music began unexpectedly in 2016, when a friend gifted her a cheap guitar . Since then, Borax has become a prolific songwriter, recording artist, and performer, known for her distinctive voice, captivating melodies, and thoughtful songwriting that taps into the heart of being human. Since she quit her day job in 2022, sh...

Jesi Bender is an artist from Upstate New York. ​ Her work leans towards experimental historical fiction that interrogates the tension between language's utility & malleability. Jesi's gorgeous new book A Child of LIght is out now date-of-episode August 12, 2025!

Jen Michalski currently lives in Carlsbad, California. She graduated from St. Mary’s College of Maryland with a BA in English and received her MS in Professional Writing from Towson University. She was voted one of the best authors in Maryland by CBS News , one of "50 Women to Watch" by The Baltimore Sun, and "Best Writer" by Baltimore Magazine (Best of Baltimore issue, 2013). Her new novel ALL TH...

Ophelia Darkly is a DJ, model, writer, performer, and Doll Tarot reader based out of Portland, Oregon. Magic, dreams, and storytelling are the threads that bind all of her creative ventures together. She believes that art, in all its forms, is one of the most sacred forces of the universe. Enjoy this wonderful conversation with Ophelia and the many magickal places she takes us . . . 

Something Rather Than Nothing Podcast Episode 300!!! We talk ABOLITION. Calvin John Smiley, Ph. D. is an associate professor of sociology at Hunter College-CUNY. His research and scholarship broadly focus on issues related to justice, inequality, and race. Smiley is the co-editor of Prisoner Reentry in the 21st Century: Critical Perspectives of Coming Home (Routledge, 2020). He is the author of th...

Katie Marie is a Cherokee/Choctaw educator, Indigenous Wisdomkeeper, and decolonial guide who works at the intersection of healing, community, and education. Enjoy this ranging conversation into matriarchy, wellness of being, Indigenous futures, our planet, Art & Philosophy!

Annabel McConnachie (she/her) is an actress, writer, singer, dancer and content creator. She is originally from Sydney, Australia but is currently based in New York City. She is best known for her work in the critically acclaimed miniseries 'IKEA Heights - The Next Generation'. Her much anticipated new play 'Archive of My Own' made its stage debut in a moved reading at the Tank. THANKS FOR LISTENI...

Sophia Hembeck is a bilingual writer and artist based in Edinburgh. She has published three books (Things I Have Noticed, 2020 & Things I Have Loved, 2023 & Thiings That Are Different Now, 2025) which are compromised of her essays and short prose as well as artwork that she specifically created for the books. They are part of her poetic-memoir trilogy." She’s a fierce advocate for literary...

This episode was recorded and captured LIVE on Independent Bookstore Day (April 26, 2025) from Browsers' Bookstore in Albany, Oregon.  Pete Dryden : Photographer, cabinet maker, professional overthinker. Hiding out in Albany, Oregon—dodging small talk, chasing meaning in the grain and the frame. Restless mind, calloused hands, too many questions and never enough quiet. Abe Richmond : Owner of...