Talking With Yale Cohn

Episode 10 - Renee Zukin

Can you have a fun and lively conversation about a serious and sensitive subject like crippling anxiety? Well, we just did. Renee Zukin is an educator, writer, and occasional musician who has openly written about her own struggles with anxiety for a while now, and she joins me on this week’s show to talk about how she has been able to make tremendous strides in facing, overcoming and learning to manage many of the anxieties which had kept her from living as full a life as possible for far too long, and what she’s learned along the way, lessons she’s sharing in her forthcoming new book Every Day, I’m Brave, which drops on August 8th.

Episode 9 - Liz Ford

It’s entirely possible that Liz Ford loves cats even more than I do. How do I know? She made them her life. And dogs, too. Liz is the former director of the Iowa City Animal Care and Adoption Center, who now has her own dog training business, and we talk about her journey from the corporate world to the world of working with animals, common misconceptions people have about their pets, the differences between cats and dogs, what people don’t consider when adopting animals that they really should, and all the good work the folks at the animal shelter do for all kinds of animals that make their way through there.

Episode 8 - Leia Lensing

What’s the old joke? “Do you know how to get to Carnagie Hall?” “Practice!” Well, in a similar vein, I wondered “How does a young woman from tiny little Solon, Iowa, become a sought-after opera singer who’s performed all across Europe and the United States, and just came back to Iowa after three months in New York City working with the Metropolitan Opera?” And the answer to that question, and the journey she took to get there, was really kind of fascinating to me. We also talked about what it’s like traveling the world and singing (and living) in places where you don’t speak the language, what opera singers have to do to stay in “opera shape” in between gigs and so much more on this week’s episode with Mezzo-Soprano Leia Lensing.

Episode 7 - Josh Carroll

Josh Carroll is one of the singularly most talented writers, comic artists, and drummers I know, all at the same fucking time. He’s also someone who is very open about the fact that he’s been in recovery from alcohol abuse for well over a decade now. We have a very interesting, and sometimes very deep conversation about creativity, reading, writing, drawing comics, making music, sobriety, recovery, how he ended up moving to Iowa (via Portland, via Arizona) and why he’s now moving to Washington, and I was really happy to be able to get him on the show before he left town.

Episode 6 - Megan Early Alter

Megan Early Alter is an Iowa City city councilor who joined me in my shop to talk about her time at New York University, which is also where I went to college, what brought her here, her “day job” at ACT, her time as a professor at the University of Iowa, why she decided to enter politics, what it’s like being an elected official in a town like Iowa City, training with the Joffrey Ballet, being a competitive collegiate diver, and a whole bunch of other things I didn’t know about her since she’s the first guest I’ve had on who I didn’t already know to some degree, which made for a very interesting conversation.