Tag Archives: Family

08Aug/25

Kara Zajac

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August 8, 2025

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 10, Episode 31: Dr. Kara Zajac!

Kara Zajac shares her memoir The Significance of Curly Hair. We discuss overcoming grief with humor, the fear of becoming a ‘traditional’ woman, raising a child in an alternative family, and how to thrive without giving up your dreams.

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Kara Zajac is a freelance writer, chiropractor, mother of a daughter, wife, entrepreneur, musician, and die hard romantic. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York and Doctor of Chiropractic degree from Life College of Chiropractic. For the last twenty years, Kara has maintained a private wellness practice in Dawsonville, GA, where she helps people revitalize their lives by healing the brain and body naturally through chiropractic care, energy work, and Braincore Neurofeedback.

She is a member of the Creative-Writing-Workshop as well as the National Writers Union and was awarded the IPPY Silver Medal for Transformational Nonfiction. She resides in the North Georgia Mountains with her wife, Kim, and daughter, Senia Mae. Kara can usually be found at home in the kitchen and enjoys sipping wine while hanging her feet off the dock.

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04Jul/25

Ross Mathews and Dr. Wellinthon García-Mathews

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July 4, 2025

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 10, Episode 26: Ross Mathews and Dr. Wellinthon García-Mathews!

Ross Mathews and Dr. Wellinthon García-Mathews share their children’s book, Tío and Tío: The Ring Bearers! We dive into how they encouraged the agency of their nephews in telling this story, the importance of children feeling involved and important, and telling the story through color and the senses!

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Ross Mathews is an Emmy-winning television host and producer, as well as the best-selling author of Man Up!: Tales of My Delusional Self-Confidence and Name Drop. He can be seen every weekday as cohost and producer on the daily syndicated talk show The Drew Barrymore Show, and as a judge and producer on RuPaul’s Drag Race. Mathews has hosted the GLAAD Media Awards a record seven times and in 2018 he was honored with the organization’s Davidson/Valentini Award for his work in promoting equality for the LGBTQ+ community, in addition to the Human Rights Campaign Visibility Award in 2011. He currently lives in New York with his husband, Dr. Wellinthon García-Mathews, and their rescue chihuahua, Audrey.

Dr. Wellinthon García-Mathews was born in the Dominican Republic and emigrated with his family to the United States at five years old, not speaking any English. He was raised in Brooklyn, and went on, along with his older sister, to be the first in his family to attend college. He holds a doctorate of education in educational policy and leadership from Hofstra University. He has served in the field of education for over a decade in the capacity of a primary teacher, assistant principal, Director of Curriculum and Instruction, and Associate Director of ENL and Equity in New York. Additionally, he has worked as an adjunct professor at Hofstra University, where he lectures on gender expression and Title IX policy impacting LGBTQ+ youth.

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16May/25

John R. Gordon

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May 16, 2025

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 10, Episode 17: John R. Gordon!

John R. Gordon shares his novel: Mother of Serpents. We discuss evil spirits & madness, blending history & myth, and why it’s important to write queer, interracial families!

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John R. Gordon lives in Shepherds Bush, London, England. He is a screenwriter, playwright and the author of nine novels, Black Butterflies and Warriors & Outlaws, both of which have been taught in the USA; Faggamuffin, Colour Scheme, Souljah, Drapetomania and the interracial YA romance Hark. He writes for the world’s first Black gay television show, Patrik-Ian Polk’s Noah’s Arc, for which he received an NAACP Image Award nomination. He is the creator of the Yemi & Femi comic, for adult readers.

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21Mar/25

Wayne Scott

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March 21, 2025

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 10, Episode 10: Wayne Scott!

Wayne Scott joins us to share his memoir: The Maps They Gave Us. We scrutinize society’s expected marriage script, and unveil how accepting one’s self and working with your spouse to craft the new story of your marriage can lead to having an unconventional family based on love.

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Wayne Scott’s writing has appeared in The Sun, Poets and Writers, The Psychotherapy Networker, Huffington Post, and The Oregonian, among others. His New York Times essay, “Two Open Marriages in One Small Room” (January 2020) was adapted for the Modern Love podcast and read by Edoardo Ballerini (summer 2021), then “dutchified” for Modern Love (Amsterdam), the television series, in 2022. Some of his more notable tweets are included in Tolstoy Together: 85 Days of War and Peace (A Public Space Books, 2021). He was a Tin House Fellow in 2019. He is a writer, psychotherapist, and teacher in Portland, Oregon.

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26Jan/24

Donald Mengay

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January 26, 2024

It gives us great pleasure to present a Season 9, Episode 4 Interview – Donald Mengay

Donald Mengay joins us to share his recent book, The Lede to Our Undoing. We talk about placing a novel in the rust belt of the 70s, diversity and inclusion, and how his narrator ties in humanity’s behavior toward the natural world.

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Donald Mengay grew up in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, where he worked in a factory for a time and managed a bookstore. He began writing fiction in his early twenties while pursuing a degree in Psychology at Metropolitan State University in Denver. He earned a Masters in English Lit at the University of Denver and a Ph.D. in Comparative Lit from NYU. He taught Queer and Post-Humanist Lit at the City University of New York for over thirty years, as well as English at the University of Paris, Nanterre. During his years teaching he published several articles of queer criticism in academic journals that include among others Genders, Genre, and Minnesota University Press. He also co-published a book entitled Dis/Inheritance: New Croatian Photography, from Ikon Press. The Lede to Our Undoing is his debut novel, the first in a trilogy. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

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[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_4wYIo571s[/embedyt]

24Feb/23

Matthew Clark Davison

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February 24, 2023

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 8, Episode 8: Matthew Clark Davison + our “The World to Come” review!

Matthew Clark Davison, author of Doubting Thomas and the upcoming The Lab: Experiments in Working Across Genre, joins us to discuss the way his novel explores the sometimes daily fears LGBTQA+ folks STILL feel while at work and among well-meaning family. Then Liz Faraim joins us to review The World to Come!

** GIVEAWAY! ** Sign up for Matthew’s newsletter by the end of March 2023 to be entered into a drawing to win a physical copy of Doubting Thomas!

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Matthew Clark Davison is the author of Doubting Thomas and creator of The Lab :: Writing Classes with MCD, and his textbook The Lab, Experiments in Writing Across Genre, co-authored by bestselling writer Alice LaPlante, is due out in 2023. His prose has been recently anthologized in Empty The Pews and 580-Split; as well as published in or on Guernica, The Atlantic Monthly, Foglifter, Lumina Magazine, Fourteen Hills, Per Contra, Educe, and others; and has been recognized with a Creative Work Grant, Cultural Equities Grant, Clark Gross Award for a Novel-in-Progress, and a Stonewall Alumni Award.

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[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwqzeQDWS_8[/embedyt]

18Feb/22

Gemma Johns

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February 18, 2022

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Gemma Johns as the guest on Season 7, Episode 07 – It Kept Me Up All Night!

Gemma Johns brings the three novels she wrote during the pandemic onto our show: A Marriage Sabbatical, Similar Features, and Shaken Worlds, proving she is a multi-genre powerhouse of an author to watch!

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Gemma Johns spent her childhood writing stories, but her sister told her she couldn’t get published until she’d actually lived a little. Many years later, Gemma has lived… a lot! She writes across a variety of genres – from romance to drama and domestic suspense. Gemma lives in Australia with her wife and their children, in a very busy household.

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[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBWQaHQa-fU[/embedyt]

12Mar/21

Britt East

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March 12, 2021

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Britt East as the guest on Episode 311 – There Is No Greater Wisdom Than Kindness

Britt East shares his A Gay Man’s Guide to Life, covering creating queer families, cultivating substantial gay friendships, and finding love. It’s a heartwarming discussion to listen to!

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BRITT EAST is an author and speaker who uses his experience, strength, and hope to challenge and inspire change-oriented gay men to get down to the business of improving their lives. With over two decades of personal growth and development experience in a variety of modalities, such as the 12 Steps, Nonviolent Communication, yoga, meditation, talk therapy, and the Hoffman Process, Britt is committed to building a personal practice of self-discovery that he can then share with gay men everywhere. He lives in Seattle with his husband and their crazy dog.

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