Jennifer Steil is a British-American writer currently living in France. She’s the author of the novel Exile Music, which won Grand Prize in the Eyelands 2020 Book Awards and the Multicultural and Historical International Book Awards. It was also a finalist for the Lambda Literary Lesbian Fiction Award. Previous books include the novel The Ambassador’s Wife and the memoir The Woman Who Fell From the Sky. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, New Orleans Review, Kenyon Review, World Policy Journal, Mslexia’s Best Women’s Short Fiction 2023, Gay & Lesbian Review, Time, Life, The Washington Times, and Vogue UK. She writes a weekly Substack newsletter called Liminal, about living between cultures, languages, and illness and health. In this interview, she talks with Tanya about her journey from reporting in New York to becoming the editor of a newspaper in Yemen, how being held hostage when she was six months pregnant inspired her first novel, and the seeds of inspiration for her second novel, about Jewish Holocaust refugees in Bolivia.

Kelly AuCoin is best known for playing cult favorite “Dollar Bill” Stearn on Showtime’s Billions and Pastor Tim (known to fans as Pastor Groovyhair) on FX’s iconic drama The Americans. Last year he starred in Hulu’s The Girl from Plainville and AppleTV+’s WeCrashed and is currently filming the FX limited series The Sterling Affairs. He has a host of other television, film and theater credits, including playing Octavius Caesar in Julius Caesar on Broadway opposite Denzel Washington. In this episode, Kelly talks with Tanya about his process of developing a character, his “tortoise-like” career path, the intersection between art and activism, what it’s like to work with Denzel Washington (“He’s got gravitational pull”) and the moments that truly thrill him as an actor.

If you enjoyed this episode, you might also enjoy my conversation with Playwright-Performer Visual Artist Hebert Sigüenza, White Jesus Was the Original Fake News; my conversation with Actor-Writer-Filmmaker Shruti Tewari, Think Amorphous; or my conversation with Writer-Actor-Director Michael Gene Sullivan, Never Shoot for Compromise.

Steve Phillips suspected there would be no “red wave” in November. One of the most astute political thinkers of our time, he showed us, in his book Brown is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Created a New American Majority, that people of color in combination with progressive whites comprise the majority in this country, a majority that put a Black president in the White House twice. In his new book, How We Win the Civil War: Securing a Multiracial Democracy and Ending White Supremacy Forever, he sheds light on the forces that seek to undermine our democracy, drawing a straight line from the Confederacy to Donald Trump, and illuminates the path forward by highlighting the organizations and individuals whose sustained efforts have transformed the political landscape in Georgia, Arizona, and beyond. In this conversation, Steve shares his core motivation for writing this book, which he describes as a culmination of his life’s work up to this point. We also discuss his writing routine, the surprises he uncovered in his research, and the examples, past and present, that inspire him to continue the fight.

Artist and art therapist Donna Alena Hrabčáková has dedicated her life to the healing capacities of art. She has lived and worked in Ohio, California, Slovakia, and the Red Lake Nation Reservation in Northern Minnesota. Her exquisitely colorful paintings are dreamlike, vivid, and profoundly moving, often evoking joy, sorrow and hope within a single canvas. Her work has been exhibited in many places throughout the US and Eastern Europe. She had recently relocated from the US to her ancestral village of Gigloce, Slovakia, 27 miles from the Ukrainian border, when the pandemic struck. She weathered much of it there, creating extraordinary new work both on canvas and on the walls of her great-grandfather’s home. She then returned to the U.S. to manage her visa when the war in Ukraine broke out. This led her to create a series of paintings titled Guardians of the Border, which have been widely shared all over the world. Here she talks with host Tanya Shaffer about her childhood, her dreams, her connection to her ancestors, and her belief in art’s transcendent power to heal.

Alison Luterman is a writer of extraordinary passion, power, courage and depth. Her work is both timely and timeless, engaging with contemporary issues in profound and complex ways while simultaneously probing the fundamental question of what it means to be human. In this conversation, we talked about her childhood—she started writing poetry when she was six!—her writing process, her recent poetry collection In the Time of Great Fires, her song cycle We Are Not Afraid of the Dark (with composer Sheela Ramesh—song excerpts included!), and the young activists who inspire her. She also reads her stunning poems “Some Girls” (selected by Naomi Shihab Nye for the New York Times Sunday Magazine) and “Insatiable.”

Off-Leash Arts theme music by Asher Witkin. This episode also includes song excerpts from We Are Not Afraid of the Dark, by Alison Luterman and Sheela Ramesh, sung by Ashley Burroughs, Gabriela Gamache, and Julia Geisler.

If you enjoyed this episode, you might enjoy the interview with singer-songwriter Holly Near, titled I Am Open, and I Am Willing; and with poet Athena Kashyap, Where A Poem Lives. You might also enjoy my poems, Doing Yoga With the Buddha and The Breath of Love.

Debra Gipson is the creator of the award-winning podcast Dear Michelle, a memoir framed as a series of letters to former First Lady Michelle Obama. In her podcast, Debra manages to be both laugh-out-loud funny and deeply moving as she discusses her rise from poverty and abuse to the hallowed halls of academia and beyond. “Michelle Obama was everything that I could have been, had I not made bad choices,” Debra explains. “She represents everything you can be if everything goes well, and I represent everything that could potentially go wrong if you make the missteps that I’ve made.” In this episode, Tanya and Debra discuss the ways in which the neighborhood where Debra grew up inspired her writing, her philosophy of human relationships, and the extraordinary resilience that continues to define her path. “I think the magic in our lives happens not when we choose to stay stationary, but when we have the courage to move.” says Debra. “Because that movement, that getting out of your comfort zone, opens up an entire world of possibility. I always say it shakes the universe.”

Marjorie Morgan has had an extraordinarily varied career in the arts. After receiving a BA in Dance from Oberlin College, she spent over 25 years dancing professionally and creating dances and performance art to be performed by herself and others. When a serious injury compromised her ability to dance, she shifted her focus to the visual arts, where she’s found joy and acclaim as a painter and printmaker. For the past few years, she’s been captivated by the process of making her own inks and pigments from natural materials that she finds near her home in Western Massachusetts. In this conversation, Marjorie discusses how painting saved her after her devastating injury, how unconscious impulses have guided her artistic journey, and how a voice heard in a dream prompted her to cross oceans to visit the site that inspired a series of her paintings.

Holly Near has had a legendary performing career spanning over 50 years, that has taken her from Hollywood to Broadway to marches and rallies and concert halls all over the world. One of the most powerful, consistent, and outspoken singers and songwriters of our time, her music elevates spirits and inspires activism. Some of the topics touched on in this lively and wide-ranging interview are her childhood on a California ranch, her life-changing experience on the Free The Army Tour during the Vietnam War, her songwriting process, her collaborations with artists such as Ronnie Gilbert and Emma’s Revolution, what it means to her to be an elder, and what she’s been up to during the pandemic. The interview is interwoven with snippets of Holly’s music from the seventies to the present.

If you enjoyed this episode, you might also enjoy my conversation with dancer/choreographer Tonya Marie Amos, titled Dance for the Revolution, or my conversation with writer/performer Herbert Sigüenza, titled Black Jesus Was the Original Fake News.

Two decades ago, Shruti Tewari left a career as an investment banker to raise her children and pursue a life in the arts. Since then she has acted in projects ranging from independent films to Bollywood Blockbusters, as well as becoming a playwright, screenwriter, and filmmaker, committed to writing and developing authentic stories about the Indian American diaspora. In this episode, she talks with host Tanya Shaffer about the challenges of moving from the finance world to the arts, her passion for elevating women’s voices, and her personal mantra, “think amorphous.”

In this episode, I talk with Carol Lloyd, author of the ground-breaking book Creating a Life Worth Living: Career Counseling for the Creatively Inclined, which came out in 1997 and is still going strong. We reflect on the book’s insights and lessons, what Carol gleaned from her conversations with creators from a wide range of art forms, and how her ideas have evolved in the time since the book came out. Currently, Carol is the VP and editorial director for Great Schools, a national non-profit focused on parenting and education, and host of the podcast Like a Sponge. Before that, she was an award-winning real estate columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle for ten years and edited the education section of Salon.com. Her work has been widely published and anthologized, including in the NY Times Magazine and on the radio show This American Life, and featured on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, PRI’s The World and KQED’s Forum and To the Best of Our Knowledge.  She’s also a mom of two.

Tonya Amos is the founder of Grown Women Dance Collective, a company made up of internationally renowned dancers in their forties and fifties who have retired from full-time positions in the nation’s finest professional dance ensembles. Tonya combines her exuberant spirit, her passion for arts and community-building, and her expertise in dance, health, and wellness to celebrate Black history; build cross-cultural, cross-racial, and cross-class bridges; and bring arts and wellness services to economically disenfranchised communities all over the San Francisco Bay Area. In this podcast, she talks with host Tanya Shaffer about her extraordinary journey as a dancer, beginning in childhood where she trained in competitive gymnastics with Russian coaches and faced extreme discrimination in the San Francisco Bay Area dance scene in the 70’s and 80’s (She was told that Blacks were not allowed onstage at the San Francisco Ballet) and eventually leading her to New York and to dance on full scholarship at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. They also discuss Tonya’s work with Grown Women Dance Collective; how she became a choreographer by default; her passion for breaking down class, race, and generational barriers; and her plans to train a new generation of health and wellness experts to bring Pilates, dance, and life skills practices into communities that have previously had little to no access.

Singer-songwriter Noe Venable has been called “a homegrown, full-blown musical visionary” (Puremusic.com). Her gorgeously layered songs, rich in myth and poetry, speak to the wilderness in each of our souls. Although she’s still young, she’s already had a rich and varied career, releasing the first of her eight albums when she was just twenty years old. In this conversation, intercut with excerpts from Noe’s diverse musical catalog, host Tanya Shaffer talks with Noe about the mysterious give and take of the creative process, the ways the stages of her life have impacted the evolution of her musical style, why she left a thriving musical career to attend divinity school, and what brought her back to the creative life.

If you enjoyed this interview, you might also enjoy my conversations with singer-songwriter Vienna Teng, titled Following A Spirit’s Whisper, in which we write a song together during the interview, and my interview with Holly Near, titled I Am Open, and I Am Willing in which she reflects on fifty-plus years of singing for social justice.

Herbert Sigüenza is a founding member of the brilliant, hilarious, and politically incisive group Culture Clash, the most produced Latino performance troupe in the country. He’s also the playwright-in-residence at the San Diego Repertory Theatre and has appeared as an actor in theatre, tv and film. He served as a cultural consultant and the voice of the lead character’s two deceased uncles in the Academy-Award-winning film Coco. In today’s episode, he chats with host Tanya Shaffer about a range of topics, including Culture Clash’s beginnings in San Francisco in the ‘80’s, how they create hit shows, his ongoing commitment to progressive politics, and how he remains engaged and excited about his art 35-plus years into a long career. He also shares a delightful monologue from his solo show A Weekend With Pablo Picasso and a thought-provoking soliloquy based on an interview with a Black preacher in Washington, DC.

Athena Kashyap is the author of two exquisite books of poetry, Crossing Black Waters and Sita’s Choice. In this episode, host Tanya Shaffer talks with her about her writing process and the mysteries of courting the muse. They also discuss some of the themes Athena explores in her books, including the immigrant experience, the push and pull between freedom and responsibility, and women’s particular suffering, desires, and joys, in India and beyond. She also reads three of her gorgeous poems, including the one the episode is named for!

Multidisciplinary artist Gwynneth VanLaven uses photography, installation, performance, writing, and social engagement to challenge stigma, which she says “takes the real experience of real people and squashes it flat into stereotypes and presumptions.” Through work that is both playful and dark, layered with irony and mystery, she seeks to break down the binary thinking that separates “the well” from “the sick” and “the disabled” from “the non-disabled.” In this wide-ranging discussion, host Tanya Shaffer talks with Gwynneth about her improvisational photographic process, her interactive public experiments, and the humor and awkwardness of being fully embodied in art and life.

Vienna Teng is a powerhouse. Her 2013 album AIMS received four independent music awards, including best adult contemporary album, the most any artist has ever received in a given year. Throughout her twenty-year career, she has released five studio albums and two live albums. She also collaborated with Off-Leash Arts host Tanya Shaffer on the musical The Fourth Messenger and sang the role of Mama Sid on the album. During that period, she also received an MB/MS from the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan and went on to work as Global Director for Sustainable Communities at McKinsey.org. She’s also a new mom. In this episode, host Tanya and Vienna don’t just talk about creativity, they dive into it when Tanya asks Vienna to play around with setting a poem created by the participants in one of her writing workshops to music.

Michael Gene Sullivan wears many hats. In this episode of Off-Leash Arts, the prolific playwright-blogger-actor-director-teacher-rabble rouser talks with host Tanya Shaffer about his unusual writing process, his work with the Tony Award-Winning San Francisco Mime Troupe (“always outspoken; never silent”), the concept of the tragic farce, and why you should never shoot for compromise.

Ann Arbor, Michigan-based visual artist Mia Risberg talks with Off-Leash Arts host Tanya Shaffer about her creative process, her series “Lost Child,” the abstract seascapes she made after 9/11, and her current series-in-progress of 100 small paintings.