Tag Archives: identity

04Jul/25

Bill Hulseman

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July 4, 2025

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 10, Episode 27: Bill Hulseman!

Bill Hulseman shares his essay collection: Six to Carry the Casket and One to Say the Mass. We dive into belonging, birth order trauma, pride parades, identity, pop culture (Madonna & Golden Girls as spiritual!), and reconciling religion with queer health!

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Bio:
Bill Hulseman is a writer, ritual designer, and former educator whose work explores identity, belonging, and personal agency. His debut book, “six to carry the casket and one to say the mass,” is a collection of deeply personal essays examining the identities we inherit, the traditions we navigate, and the power we have to shape our own narratives. Through reflections on family, Catholicism, and queer identity, Hulseman offers a nuanced exploration of what it means to carve out space for oneself in a world that often seeks to define us.

Aformer middle school principal, teacher, and campus minister, Hulseman holds degrees in religious studies, the comparative study of religion, and education leadership. His time in Catholic schools gave him both a profound appreciation for faith and a firsthand understanding of the tensions between personal identity and institutional tradition. His writing is informed by this background, as well as his deep love for pop culture—where figures like Madonna and “The Golden Girls” helped him see himself long before the world was ready to.

Hulseman now lives in Seattle with his husband, Jonathon, where he continues to write, design rituals, and lead meaningful conversations about identity, faith, and belonging.

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28Jun/24

Terry Wolverton

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June 28, 2024

It gives us great pleasure to present a Season 9, Episode 25 Interview – Terry Wolverton

Terry Wolverton joins us to share her novel Season of Eclipse. We discuss how her hero goes from living a life of privilege to being in witness protection and having to confront the issues of her own identity. We also go into how Detroit shapes that journey and introduces people into her life that she didn’t know she needed.

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Terry Wolverton was born in Cocoa Beach, Florida. When she was just a year old, she left Florida with her mother and moved to Detroit, where she grew up and started college before transferring to the University of Toronto where she majored in Theater and Women’s Studies. Ever since then, she’s been both a student of and strong voice for feminism and the arts.

After moving to Los Angeles, Terry was instrumental in several endeavors including the Lesbian Art Project, the Incest Awareness Project, the Great American Lesbian Art Show, and a white-women’s anti-racism consciousness-raising group.

In 1982, Terry established a consulting business, Consult’Her, working with nonprofits, small businesses, and individual artists on issues related to vision, planning, resource development, marketing, and human resources. In 1997, she founded Writers At Work, a creative writing center where she continues to teach several weekly workshops in fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry, and to provide creative consultations to writers. She is also Affiliate Faculty in the MFA Writing Program at Antioch University Los Angeles.

She’s authored eleven books and is a certified instructor of Kundalini Yoga.

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24May/24

Alan Lessik

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May 24, 2024

It gives us great pleasure to present a Season 9, Episode 20 Interview – Alan Lessik

Alan Lessik shares his novel, Make The Dark Night Shine, a story of family heritage and discovery. We discuss the inspiration for the story, as well as Alan’s love of figure skating, how novels preserve queer culture, and a look into Zen Buddhism for queer folks.

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Alan Lessik is a member of the Berlin Queer Writers Circle, Zen practitioner, amateur figure skater and queer activist. His debut novel The Troubleseeker was short-listed for the Publishing Triangle’s 2017 Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ Fiction. His non-fiction works and essays have been published by Lambda Literary, the Bay Area Reporter, Advocate and San Francisco Bay Guardian. For three years, he moderated panels on queer fiction at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Conferences and served on the Board of the LGBTQ Writers Caucus.

His second novel, Make the Dark Night Shine, was awarded by Literary Titan and is a Kirkus Review recommended book.

This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
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10Feb/23

Annie Krabbenschmidt

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February 10, 2023

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 8, Episode 6: Annie Krabbenschmidt + our “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” review!

Annie Krabbenschmidt, author of Fred: An unbecoming woman, joins us to discuss a lifetime of coming out, identity, acceptance, and media influence. Then Liz Faraim joins us to review Portrait of a Lady on Fire!

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Annie (she/they) is living in their native San Francisco. She teaches 10th grade English and her debut book came out this spring.

This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
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