Listen 2 Me

Lee Kvern (she/her) has been writing for almost thirty years, and she hasn’t met a writer that she doesn’t like. Lee can always find the good in people—or, at the very least, the interesting—and her award-winning short stories ("White", 2007 CBC Prize for Fiction; "Visibility", 2006 CBC Alberta Anthology; "Fourteen", 2007 CBC Alberta Anthology; "Detachment", 2010 Malahat Open Season Award finalist; "The Nothing Yard", 1999 Heritage Short Story Contest) and celebrated novels (The Matter of Sylvie, Afterall) tend to feature characters you might call 'unlikeable'—but that's the fun of writing them, and seeing where their stories end up. Lee joins Gio and Renée to talk about how far she's come in her career and how far she still wants to go, story building craft, and how to have it all as a parent, an employee and an author—hint: you have to pick your priorities. Detours include the odd jobs authors tend to have, the joy of making yourself a nuisance to elected officials, and the pleasure of teaching yourself how to make art for art's sake. Find Lee on social media @leekvern [https://www.instagram.com/leekvern/]. Want to support the show? Check out our bonus content on Patreon [https://patreon.com/listen2mepod]. Gio Petrucci: giografik.com [https://giografik.com/] Renée Meloche: reneewrought.com [https://reneewrought.com/]

Daven Seebarran (he/him) may be a natural introvert, but you'd never know it from his work advocating for non-profit funding, social equity and resource accessibility. On top of his regular work, Daven used the 2020 quarantine to translate his lifelong love of drag into an online space where fans could connect with drag performers and aspiring queens could learn from virtual drag instructors. That has since become the booming online Drag Academy [https://www.dragacademy.ca/]—dedicated to digital programming that includes performances, a podcast, virtual drag classes and bursaries. Daven talks about writing bursaries, the early drag scene in Edmonton, leveraging creativity in order to solve complex issues of social inequity, and the importance of intersectionality, diversity and authenticity in artistic programming. Check out the dragacademy.ca [https://dragacademy.com] for available programs, and find Daven at davenseebarran.com [https://www.davenseebarran.com/]. Support L2M by checking out our bonus content on Patreon [https://patreon.com/listen2mepod]. Gio Petrucci: giografik.com [https://giografik.com/] Renée Meloche: reneewrought.com [https://reneewrought.com/]

In the spring of 2020, 16-year-old playwright, poet, screenwriter and filmmaker Eli Smart (he/they) and 14-year-old artist and filmmaker Caelan Bell (he/him) found themselves "coping" as best they could with the upheaval and uncertainty of quarantine, online learning, social isolation and political divisiveness caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. With the help of collaborators and their mentor, author and playwright Kim Firmston [http://www.kimfirmston.com/] (she/he/they), Eli Caelan set out to make sense of this strange new world through the medium of film with their docu-short Adaptation in the Impoverished City [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25zButIedik]. Caelan, Eli and Kim join Renée and Gio to discuss how the project came together, what these accomplished young creatives are going to pursue next, and how connecting with other creatives during such a fraught time inspired them to keep going. Stay up to date on the Adaptation in the Impoverished City by following them @adaptationyyc [https://instagram.com/adaptationyyc]. Support L2M by checking out our Patreon [https://patreon.com/listen2mepod]. Gio Petrucci: giografik.com [//giografik.com] Renée Meloche: reneewrought.com [//reneewrought.com]

In this light-hearted, chatty episode, Renée and Gio catch up on each other's creative efforts, recent dietary choices, and their mental health as uncertainty about the world's safety and health persists. Renée asks the timely question: "What is wrong with coasting?" and Gio explores what working to his potential has meant for his mental health for the past few decades, and why creative work can be so challenging when it all depends on self-motivating. 🚧 Detours include RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars (Season 6 spoilers!), Gio's love of disco mixes, empathy burnout, internal family system therapy and how, if you try hard enough, you can actually reprogram your personality. Like the show? Drop some love on our socials @listen2mepod or check out our Patreon [https://patreon.com/listen2mepod] for bonus content! Gio Petrucci: giografik.com [https://giografik.com/] Renée Meloche: reneewrought.com [https://reneewrought.com/]

Myspace Forever! In this two-parter, Gio and Renée explore the creation and advent of popular social media platforms and their evolution into content farms, where creatives feel the pressure to market themselves and their work in an authentic, accessible way while still getting those ad revenue dollars. 📱 In Part 1, Renée takes Gio down a historical rabbit hole of social media sites and the most popular ones through the years up to now, including Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest and TikTok and Renée's forever fave, Tumblr. We're talking about ads, verification, flaming in the comment sections, and DMs. In Part 2, Gio and Renée discuss their experience using the sites (the successes and failures) for promotion of their work, and what they've seen other creatives accomplish.  🚧 Detours in this part include Gio's coffee detox, Renée's ADHD rambles and Gio's vision of a WALL-E style future. 🤖 Go to patreon.com/listen2mepod [//patreon.com/listen2mepod] to listen to Part 2 of this episode! 💖Connect with Gio at giografik.com [https://giografik.com/] and Renée at reneewrought.com [https://reneewrought.com/].