Something Rather Than Nothing

Matthew Kyle Levine is a filmmaker and cinematographer based in New York City.  His short films have won awards and played at numerous film festivals throughout North America, including the Williamsburg Independent Film Festival and the Canada Shorts Film Festival, most notably for his short film “Miss Freelance”. Watch 'Caleb and Sarah" and other short films on Mathew Kyle Levine's Vimeo: MK...

Paul Luikart is the author of the short story collections Animal Heart (Hyperborea Publishing, 2016), Brief Instructions (Ghostbird Press, 2017), Metropolia (Ghostbird Press, 2021), The Museum of Heartache (Pski’s Porch Publishing, 2021), the 11th installment of Belle Point Press' Prose Series, and The Realm of the Dog (J. New Books, 2024.) He serves as an adjunct professor of fiction writing at C...

The Ill-Fitting Skin is layered with surreal storytelling but remains an extraordinarily realistic read, in the sense that even the most solid realities of life—and death—tend to blur and shimmer at their raw edges. The talkative bird that nests in a woman’s womb is as real as the “previous tenant.” The love of a mother for her uncontrollable son is as real as the wildness that is in her too. The...

Morgan Parker is a poet, essayist, and novelist. She is the author of the young adult novel Who Put This Song On? ; and the poetry collections Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up At Night , There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé , and Magical Negro , which won the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, winner o...

Ruby Roth ’s work is defined by the female form and depicts the inner lives of women through emotionally visceral representations of the bodies they inhabit. For the past several years, amidst a radical transition from a decade of familial life as a best-selling children’s book author-illustrator to self-determined independence as a single female artist, Roth has explored the deep end of the femin...

Mark Ostler joins the show to kick around comic books - specifically his work Ivar the Boxer and Waltzing Carpet Juliette We also talked about Warning: Danger!  Mark Ostler is a comic book writer and publisher.  In 2023, he wrapped up a 4 issue mini-series titled, “Waltzing Carpet Juliette” about the dangers of consumerism.  In 2024, he began a new self-published comic book series t...

This episode is very different than others. Jim LaBelle, this episode's featured guest, passed away recently. I wish, hope and pray that our conversation gives tribute to Jim's contributions and advocacy. Thank you and farewell Jim.  Host Ken Volante "There are certain individuals that go under the radar their entire lives despite being one of the most resilient people in the room, and that i...

Blend a background in fast-paced PR, political campaigns, and a lot of roll-up-your-sleeves energy, and you've Stuart Collective f ounder and CEO K athleen Stuart. Kathleen founded Stuart Collective in 2017. With a crystal-clear mission to support changemakers in securing progressive wins, Kathleen works every day to win campaigns, pass high-profile legislation, and influence public opinion. Kathl...

Ivana Yellowback is a member of Manto Sipi Cree Nation – God’s River (maternal family) and a relative to Mathias Colomb Cree Nation (paternal family). She is both Asiniskow Ithinew ekwa Muskego Ininew (High Rock and Muskeg Cree). Ivana an Associate Producer, Writer, Cree host, and English co-host of Eagle Vision’s and APTN’s 7TH GEN Home (7thgen.ca) \ Cree Webisodes | 7TH GEN (2022/2023/2024). She...

Teghan Hammond and Mel Hammond are sisters who grew up punching each other whenever they saw a P.T. Cruiser, dying their hair blue together, and fabricating a fake band in which their middle brother was (allegedly) the lead singer. Writing Lucy, Uncensored was their first time co-writing. Unless you count the summer they spent scribbling down recipes for the strangest sandwiches you’ve ever heard...

Special Spring 2024 NYC Fringe Festival episode with three dynamic creators! Lauren O'Brien presents Lolo’s Boyfriend Show - a new comedic solo show, the writer is also the performer; Suzanne Bachner presents Conversations with My Divorce Attorney - the playwright also directs the two hander play which she started writing many years ago when she was getting a divorce. Her current husband stars as...

From Page Stephenson : "Sometimes my life feels as though I am both the director and the directed. As I attempt to navigate the vast ocean of choices, I often find myself adrift. It's in these moments that inspiration often bubbles to the surface. My creative adventures have enabled me to collaborate with giants like Google, Red Bull, Patagonia, and Netflix. These projects have sent me around the...

M.J. Bassett is an English director, writer, and producer of film and television. She began her career directing the cult horror films Deathwatch and Wilderness, the dark fantasy Solomon Kane , and the video game adaptation Silent Hill: Revelation. Since 2012, she has worked as a director and writer on high-profile television series like Strike Back, Ash vs Evil Dead, Power and Altered Carbon. Che...

Ben Tanzer 's work includes the short story collection UPSTATE, the science fiction novel Orphans and the essay collections Lost in Space and Be Cool. Tanzer is a storySouth and Pushcart nominee, a finalist for the Annual National Indie Excellence and Eric Hoffer Book Awards, a winner of the Devil's Kitchen Literary Festival Nonfiction Prose Award and a Midwest Book Award, and has received an Hono...

Philip Barasch has maintained a lifelong interest in sequential art. He is the creator of HandHewn, a magazine designed to explore the Graphic Short Story art form. His years in Portland, Oregon included involvement with The Stumptown Comic Book Convention, Sequential Art Gallery and Talisman Gallery. Philip and his wife, Charis, relocated to Astoria, Oregon in 2018. Charis departed this world in...

Guest host Kinneret Ely interviews opera star Nicholas Tamagna Nicholas Tamagna’s meteoric rise in recent years has made him one of the world’s most fascinating alto voices. Highlights of the last few seasons were undoubtedly his interpretation of Ermano in the award-winning CD recording of Gismondo, re di Polonia (Leonardo Vinci) on the Parnassus label and its extensive concert tour, his MET debu...

Chimen Kouri is a writer based in Cliffwood Beach, New Jersey. Her work has been featured in Goat’s Milk Magazine, Blood Moon Poetry, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and more. She fell in love with storytelling one Christmas morning during a power outage when she and her parents laid in bed while her father told stories about his life in Lebanon. She is currently writing two full-length poetry and pro...

TJ McGowan aka The Everyday Bite is a Bronx based writer, poet, and spoken word artist who has performed all over the Tri-State. His written work has been published in Flash Fiction Mag, Collective Unrest, 35MM, Mojave Heart, Vamp Cat, United: Red, BX Writers, to name a few. His body-autonomy poem, I Am Not Her Bones, and its incendiary performance was recipient of the 2019 Poem of the Year at the...

Mortal Emblem owner Olivia Britz-Wheat is a multimedia artist who has been tattooing for over 15 years in Portland. She hails originally from Colorado, attended college in Missoula, Montana until learning how to tattoo under Phil Roberson and Jed Dillon. Enjoy this wide-ranging conversation and regale in thoughts about art, Depeche Mode, Portland, The Lloyd Center mystique and VHS love.

ART FUN with the hosts of the Baroque B**ches Podcast ! How much fun can you have on a podcast? I dunno but this was hella fun. Join this wildly ranging art, life, and raunch conversation to discover what you did not want to know but, really, c'mon, you actually really did want to know. Art Scholarship for the People!!! BB Website up in here S

Death is the high cost of living. The weight of that knowledge can feel crippling but is it there we find the deepest and most important knowledge of how to live? After tragedy struck in 2013, Elizabeth Coplan turned to writing to express her personal grief. She wrote many published essays, and later, after experiencing three losses in less than a year, she turned to writing plays focused on this...

ALLYSON MCCABE is a journalist whose work is heard on NPR’s newsmagazines, public radio stations and programs, and podcasts. Also appearing in publications such as the New York Times, New York Magazine/Vulture, BBC Culture, Wired, and Bandcamp, McCabe is also the author of WHY SINEAD O’CONNOR MATTERS , UT Press, 2023.

Katherine Yeske Taylor began her career as a rock critic in Atlanta in the 1990s, interviewing Georgia musical royalty such as the Indigo Girls, R.E.M., and the Black Crowes while still a teenager. Since then, she has conducted several hundred interviews and contributes regularly to Billboard , Flood , Spin , and American Songwriter , among others. She is a longtime New York City resident and is e...

Shippentower signs with the Oregon Ravens Kola Shippentower is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. She has co-founded and is the Director of The Wisáwca Project - Enough Iz Enough, a non-profit organization working together for change, for better communication and involvement. Kola has developed a Safety Plan to be utilized by anyone in identifying saf...

Minnesota musician, Katy Tessman is an optimistic and approachable singer-songwriter with a voice full of the wisdom she’s gained through cancer survival, heartbreak, and motherhood. Her powerful vocals and rhythmic approach to guitar (or mandolin) express a straight-from-the-heart songwriting style that moves passionately over diverse emotional and musical terrain.