Women Living the Questions

Sylvia Brownrigg: The Writer Becomes the Story

In this episode, host Ruby Tugade speaks with Sylvia Brownrigg, a writer whose work explores family, memory, and the questions that persist through a lifetime. Raised between Northern California and England, Sylvia has built a literary life through fiction, nonfiction, and creating spaces where writers can gather across cultures. Sylvia talks about the family histories explored in her memoir, the unexpected presence of an absent father, and how love, loss, and motherhood inform her writing. She also shares the Mediterranean Artists Project, a literary gathering in the south of France bringing writers, artists, journalists, and thinkers together across creative fields. This deeply personal conversation explores how what’s missing can leave its own imprint, and how searching for answers can deepen our understanding of ourselves. Music: “Love” by Alex-Productions, licensed under CC BY 3.0

Candace Corson, MD: Kindness Is Medicine

This episode includes discussion of chronic pain and suicidal thoughts. Please take care while listening. In this episode, host Ruby Tugade speaks with Candace Corson, MD. From growing up during the Little Rock school integration crisis and entering Yale as part of its first class of women, to practicing family medicine in rural North Carolina, she has spent a lifetime asking what it truly means to heal. She shares the seven years of debilitating chronic pain that transformed her from doctor to patient. With remarkable clarity, Candace reveals why she believes kindness and gratitude are the most powerful medicines we have, and how the small acts of kindness can change the course of a life. Music: “Love” by Alex-Productions, licensed under CC BY 3.0

Barbara Wagner: Stop Asking Me How Fast I Can Type

In this episode, host Ruby Tugade speaks with Barbara Wagner, who looks back on a life of expanding what was possible: from entering Yale as one of the first women at the college, to forging a career in corporate law when women were still being asked how fast they could type. She also shares what it was like to navigate Yale's first years of coeducation and the sexism she encountered along the way. With candid honesty and thoughtful perspective, Barbara reflects on the unconventional partnership she and her husband built, and how together they challenged traditional ideas about work, family, and what a woman's life could become. Music: “Love” by Alex-Productions, licensed under CC BY 3.0

Patty Locuratolo Hymanson: The Curious Neurologist

In this episode, host Ruby Tugade speaks with Patty Louratolo Hymanson, a neurologist, former Maine state representative and chair of the Health and Human Services Committee, and longtime community leader whose life has been shaped by curiosity, courage, and connection. Patty reflects on her Italian immigrant heritage, her upbringing in Yonkers and summers by the sea in Massachusetts, and her family story across generations, from grandparents who arrived from Italy as teenagers to a home shaped by compassion and care. She shares stories from her early medical training during the AIDS crisis in New York City, her years in private neurology practice on the Maine coast, and her later work in public service and health policy, including sponsoring medical aid in dying legislation in Maine. She also opens up about a life guided by exploration through travel, teaching, music, painting, and community, and the lesson that continues to return: know and be true to yourself. Music: “Love” by Alex-Productions, licensed under CC BY 3.0

Annette Cyr: A Woman’s Constellations

In the latest episode of “Women Living the Questions”, host Ruby Tugade is in conversation with Annette Cyr, a painter, filmmaker, writer, and professor whose work has been recognized by global cultural institutions and film festivals including Cannes, the Pushcart Prize, and the Guggenheim Foundation. She looks back on a life of shifting between art forms, and learning that when one becomes impossible, another can carry the work forward. Her work, including her long-running “Women in Predicaments” series, explores what she calls the “quiet heroism of women”, or the unacknowledged ways women move through challenge and care. In one of the most moving moments of our conversation, she shares an experience with her mother that feels like one of her paintings…where nothing is said, and everything is understood. Music: “Love” by Alex-Productions, licensed under CC BY 3.0