An archival interview of Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, author of Women who run with the wolves, Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype. The story of the Red Shoes from Chapter 8, Self-Preservation: Identifying leg traps, cages and poisoned bait.

A conversation with Nilsa Rivera, a published writer of creative non-fiction, with an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, about podcasting and navigating the world as writers.

Pilar Uribe with quotes from notable women. Original music is by Jay Rodriguez Sierra. Dan Klink provided some sound doctoring. Stick around for one last tidbit from Martha’s Kitchen Garden, produced by Crystal Waters, from last summer when the resident snapping turtles were attacking my newly adopted Muscovy…

Contributors: Pilar Uribe , Jay Rodriguez Sierra, Crystal Clear Waters

References from the Podcast for further information:

• Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes
• Women Who Run With the Wolves, Myths and Stories of the Wild Women Archetype
• Alan Dundes
• Bruno Bettelheim
• Joseph Campbell
• Hero With a Thousand Faces
• Michelle Obama
• Rosa Parks
• Helen Keller
• Amelia Earhart
• Maya Angelou
• Lucille Ball
• Nilsa Rivera
• Pilar Uribe 
• Jay Rodriguez Sierra
• Crystal Clear Waters
• Dan Klink

00;00;03;01 - 00;00;18;19
Speaker 1
My aunt used to say she used to say, you know, we're Catholics, we're Latino Catholics. And she would say, we don't belong to the over church. She would point at the building. She would say, we belong to what's underneath the church. And what I'm saying.

00;00;20;07 - 00;00;38;06
Speaker 2
Then at that point, I started sharing my work and it's been fun and I've been a fan of I'd been published a few times. And you've recently gotten your MFA? I recently got my Amnesty Remote Scholarship.

00;00;39;15 - 00;00;57;18
Speaker 3
Hi, this is Listen and be heard. I'm bilateral. You know, country can ever truly flourish if it stifles the potential of its women and deprives itself of the contributions of half its citizens. Michelle Obama.

00;01;00;11 - 00;01;16;06
Speaker 4
Women Who Run with the Wolves. Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Clarissa Pinko Estes, Ph.D.. And we have her on the line now. Do you hear me? Dr. Estes. Hello? Yes. Do you hear me?

00;01;16;07 - 00;01;17;11
Speaker 1
Yes.

00;01;17;11 - 00;01;35;06
Speaker 4
Welcome to Wbay. Did you hear the reading? I just did of the Red Shoes Limit given in how.

00;01;35;11 - 00;02;09;19
Speaker 5
To take welcome to the Listen and Be Heard podcast. My name is Martha Senator, your host and producer of this montage of thoughts, conversations, story and more. This week I have an interview from the archives of Dr. Clarissa PICCOLA Estes, author of Women Who Run with the Wolves, which was recorded in the 1990s on WBAY Radio during a Women's History Month special that I was a part of.

00;02;10;12 - 00;02;36;08
Speaker 5
Pilar brings us more quotes from influential women of the past and present. Later on, we'll hear from Nils Rivera, a creative nonfiction writer who asked me to break down for her how I got started podcasting. If you stick around to the end, there's another tidbit from Martha's Kitchen Garden about catching snapping turtles with frozen fish.

00;02;47;11 - 00;02;48;29
Speaker 4
Living it is giving it given.

00;02;48;29 - 00;02;53;10
Speaker 2
It is having it having it is taken it taken it is moving its shake.

00;02;53;10 - 00;03;07;27
Speaker 3
And it created it. Loving it, living it is loving it. Knowing what must be done does away with fear. Living it. Rosa Parks supposed to love.

00;03;08;06 - 00;03;10;04
Speaker 2
It's given way to emotions.

00;03;10;04 - 00;03;13;08
Speaker 4
Creating emotions, calling attention to yourself.

00;03;14;01 - 00;03;19;18
Speaker 6
The dog living it is.

00;03;19;21 - 00;03;20;16
Speaker 5
Learning from someone.

00;03;21;07 - 00;03;25;25
Speaker 4
Why did you write this book? What is brought you to write women? You run with the wolves.

00;03;26;06 - 00;03;29;23
Speaker 1
Oh, that's a short, simple question.

00;03;29;23 - 00;03;30;16
Speaker 2
Yes, answer.

00;03;30;29 - 00;04;04;11
Speaker 1
The 20 years ago, when I began practicing, I fell to the the psychoanalytic literature was not really written about real women. There was no literature about widows or nuns or Latinos or black women or single mothers or lesbians or any kind of woman who I knew who lived a real life. So I felt that I wanted to write about down to Earth, and I could think of nothing more down to earth, actually, than fairy tales.

00;04;08;08 - 00;04;35;08
Speaker 4
Once there was a poor, motherless child who had no shoes, but the child saved cloth scraps wherever she found them, and over time sewed herself a pair of red shoes. They were crude, but she loved them. They made her feel rich, even though her days were spent gathering food in the thorny woods until far past dark. But one day, as she trudged down the road in her rags and her red shoes, a gilded carriage pulled up beside her.

00;04;35;20 - 00;05;06;13
Speaker 4
Inside was an old woman who told her she was going to take her home and treat her as her own little daughter. So to the wealthy old woman's house, they went and the child's hair was cleaned and combed. She was given pure white undergarments and a fine wool dress and white stockings and shiny black shoes. When the child asked after her old clothes and especially her red shoes, the old woman said the clothes were so filthy and the shoes so ridiculous that she had thrown them into the fire where they were burnt to ashes.

00;05;06;28 - 00;05;38;25
Speaker 4
The child was very sad for even with all the riches surrounding her, the humble red shoes made by her own hand had given her the greatest happiness. Now she was made to sit still all the time, to walk without skipping and to not speak, and was spoken to. But a secret fire began to burn in her heart, and she continued to yearn for her old red shoes more than anything, as the child was old enough to be confirmed on the day of the innocence, the old woman took her to an old crippled shoemaker to have a special pair of shoes made for the occasion.

00;05;39;14 - 00;05;58;16
Speaker 4
In the shoemaker's case, there stood a pair of red shoes made of finest leather that were finer than fine. They practically glowed. So even though red shoes were scandalous for church, the child who chose only with her hungry heart, picked the red shoes. The old lady's eyesight was so poor she could not see the color of the shoes and so paid for them.

00;05;59;02 - 00;06;30;12
Speaker 4
The old shoemaker winked at the child and grabbed the shoes of Now you examined the fairy tales for the archetypes that exist within them and the messages that they have for us. But what power do fairy tales really have in our culture that that you turn to them and find them useful?

00;06;30;28 - 00;07;10;29
Speaker 1
Well, you know, I come from a working class family, from the lower class and most of the people that I grew up with could not read or write, or they did so haltingly. And so I grew up in an oral tradition, and the stories were a way of teaching and helping and sometimes mending people. And they were the strongest things that I knew and I wanted to put together my psychoanalytic work and you might say my grass roots work and to put them together and to talk to people about their real lives.

00;07;11;04 - 00;07;36;22
Speaker 4
Now, when I read this story, the ending is really horrifying and it would I think, you know, it has some kind of warning in it, which I wanted to speak about a little bit. I wonder you know, when you think of recounting a story like this to your daughter, it seems to be a very sort of story, just like, oh, really?

00;07;36;22 - 00;07;56;27
Speaker 4
Everyone stared, even the icons on the wall, even the statues stare disapprovingly at her shoes. But she loved the shoes all the more so when the pontiff intoned, the choir, hummed the organ, pumped the child, thought nothing more beautiful than her red shoes. By the end of the day, the old woman had been informed about her. Ward's red shoes.

00;07;57;09 - 00;08;16;08
Speaker 4
Never, never wear those red shoes again. The old woman threatened that the next Sunday the child couldn't help but choose the red shoes over the black ones. And she and the old woman walked to church as usual. At the door to the church was an old soldier with his arm in a sling. He wore a little jacket and had a red beard.

00;08;16;16 - 00;08;45;15
Speaker 4
He bowed and asked permission to brush the dust from the child's shoes. The child put out her foot and he tapped the soles of her shoes with a little wig, a jig jig song that made the soles of her feet itch. Remember to stay for the dance. He smiled and winked at her again. Everyone looked askance at the girl's red shoes, but she so loved the shoes that were bright like crimson, bright like raspberries, bright like pomegranates that she could hardly think of anything else, hardly hear the service at all.

00;08;45;23 - 00;09;04;26
Speaker 4
So busy was she turning her feet this way and that admiring her red shoes that she forgot to sing as she and the old woman left the church, the injured soldier called out, What beautiful dancing shoes. His words made the girl take a few little twirls right there and then. But once her feet had begun to move, they would not stop.

00;09;04;26 - 00;09;23;06
Speaker 4
And she danced through the flowerbeds and around the corner of the church until it seemed as though she had lost complete control of herself. She did a gavotte and then Posadas and then waltzed by herself through the fields across the way. The old woman's coachmen jumped up from his bench and ran after the girl picked her up and carried her back to the carriage.

00;09;23;19 - 00;09;45;11
Speaker 4
But the girl's feet in the red shoes were still dancing in the air as though they were still on the ground. The old woman in the coachman tugged and pulled, trying to pry the red shoes off. It was such a sight, all hats askew and kicking legs. But at last the child's feet were calmed. Back home, the old woman slammed the red shoes down high on a shelf and warned the girl never to touch them again.

00;09;45;24 - 00;10;02;02
Speaker 4
But the girl could not help looking up at them and longing for them. To her, they were still the most beauteous things on the face of the earth. Not long after, as fate would have it, the old woman became bedridden, and as soon as her doctors left, the girl crept into the room where the red shoes were kept.

00;10;02;12 - 00;10;20;04
Speaker 4
She glanced up at them, so high on the shelf, her glance became a gaze and her gaze became a powerful desire. So much so that the girl took the shoes from the shelf and fastened them on, feeling it would do no harm. But as soon as they touched her heels and toes, she was overcome by the urge to dance.

00;10;20;07 - 00;10;56;10
Speaker 1
Well, first of all, you know, it's good to remember that stories are told in series and the stories that are, say, collected in Grimm fairy tales, many of them are very fragmented stories. There actually are 17 stories that I found that belong to the cycle of the Red Shoes. And so there will be another tale in fairy tales, even though the hero or the heroine comes in to bad luck or big trouble, they live again another day and they come back like the headless maiden story that's in the book.

00;10;56;10 - 00;11;20;27
Speaker 1
Women Who Run with the Wolves. Her hands are cut off, but through desire and desire to help someone other than herself, at the very end of the tale, her hands grow back. And the tale is very, very, very long because it's it's actually several episodes long. The Red Shoes is very short because it's fragmented. It's only the part of a cycle, you see.

00;11;21;10 - 00;11;35;02
Speaker 1
So nevertheless, each part of a story, even fragments, can be understood in many different ways. And I approach the fairy tale through archetypal psychology and symbology. But there are.

00;11;35;02 - 00;11;52;01
Speaker 4
Other ways as well. But then it's Sardis. And then in Big Daring Waltz turns in rapid succession. The girl was in her glory and did not realize she was in trouble until she wanted to dance to the left. And the shoes insisted on dancing to the right. When she wanted to dance round the shoes insisted on dancing straight ahead.

00;11;52;01 - 00;12;10;06
Speaker 4
And as the shoes dance, the girl rather than the other way around, they dance to right down the road, through the muddy fields and out into the dark and gloomy forest there against a tree was the old soldier with the red beard, his arm in a sling, and dressed in his little jacket. Oh, my God. Beautiful dancing shoes.

00;12;10;18 - 00;12;32;01
Speaker 4
Terrified. She tried to pull the shoes off, but as much as she took the shoes state first, she hopped on one foot and then the other trying to take off the shoes. But her one foot on the ground kept dancing. Even so, into her other foot in her hand did its part of the dance also. And so dance and dance and dance she did over highest hills and through the valleys in the rain and in the snow and in the sunlight.

00;12;32;10 - 00;12;50;16
Speaker 4
She danced. She danced in the darkest night and through sunrise. And she was still dancing in twilight as well. But it was not good dancing. It was terrible dancing. And there was no rest for her. She danced into a churchyard. In there, a spirit of dread would not allow her to enter the spirit, pronounce these words over her.

00;12;50;16 - 00;13;09;26
Speaker 4
You shall dance in your red shoes until you become like a Wraith, like a ghost, till your skin hangs from your bones. Till there is nothing left of you but entrails dancing You shall dance door to door through all the villages And you shall strike each door three times. And when people peer out, they will see you and fear your fate for themselves.

00;13;09;26 - 00;13;11;07
Speaker 4
Dance red shoes.

00;13;11;07 - 00;13;12;22
Speaker 2
You shall dance.

00;13;13;09 - 00;13;37;10
Speaker 4
The girl begged for mercy, but before she could plead further, her red shoes carried her away over the briers. She danced through the streams, over the hedgerows, and on and on dancing, still dancing till she came to her old home. And there were mourners, the old woman who had taken her in had died. Yet even so, she danced on by and dance she did as dance she must in abject exhaustion and horror.

00;13;37;16 - 00;13;59;02
Speaker 4
She danced into a forest where lived the town's executioner, and the ax on his wall began to tremble. As soon as it sends to her coming near, please, she begged the executioners. She danced by his door. Please cut off my shoes to free me from this horrid fate. And the executioner cut through the straps of the red shoes with his ax.

00;13;59;10 - 00;14;21;14
Speaker 4
But still the shoes stayed on her feet, and so she cried to him that her life was worth nothing and that he should cut off his feet. So he cut off her feet and the red shoes with the feeding them kept on dancing through the forest and over the hill and out of sight. And now the girl was a poor cripple and had to find her own way in the world as a servant to others.

00;14;21;27 - 00;14;26;14
Speaker 4
And she never, ever again wish for Red.

00;14;26;14 - 00;15;01;23
Speaker 1
To Ellen Landis or Bruno Bettelheim. There are many people who have interpreted tales in their own way. I tried to interpret them from the feminine point of view, from a point of view that values intuition and rationality, that values the outer life and the inner life as well. So the Red Shoes story could be seen as a story about throwing away the life made by hand.

00;15;02;09 - 00;15;27;10
Speaker 1
The red shoes that the young girl pieced together for herself. And I think very few of us have not had a gilded carriage come along at some time in our life, and the little stairs come down and and we're invited into a life that seems as though maybe it will be a shortcut or or it'll be easier or it'll leave us with no surprises.

00;15;27;18 - 00;15;52;23
Speaker 1
And I think that most of the time, at least once in our life, we enter into that gilded carriage and we are taken away and we yearn for something eventually that's real, really, real, truly of us. And because it may not be accessible, we will accept something that looks shiny and looks bright and looks fulfilling.

00;15;52;23 - 00;16;24;22
Speaker 4
And now, in a way, you know, from what I gathered from this book, it's easy for us to be misled in this way. But I think it's part of a greater search of sort of the overall theme of your book of the Wild Woman Within, as with her instant instincts are intact and who would hopefully behave in a in a healthy way towards her own survival, in her own instincts of her inner being?

00;16;25;01 - 00;16;36;28
Speaker 4
Would you say that this wild woman is almost the recovery of the of the goddess of an ancient woman that we have really lost touch with?

00;16;37;06 - 00;17;00;28
Speaker 1
Well, look, first of all, the truth be known in psychology means the study of the soul. That's what the word psychology means. It comes from the ancient Greek word, Prisca, which means breath and it means that the soul is like breath. It is the animating force. And then the truth also be known. There are many selves within the psyche.

00;17;00;28 - 00;17;34;12
Speaker 1
Many, many, many, many. However, there seems to be one. That's the organizing conscious principle, and we often call that the ego. And then there's another one. And that's what I've tried to write about. It's it's actually ineffable. It's untouchable. You can't you cannot really write about it, talk about it, except in lyric or in poetry or in symbols or in painting or in dance, because it has a quality about it that can't be brought down into simple words among different people called that source different thing.

00;17;34;12 - 00;17;59;22
Speaker 1
Some people call it the goddess. I chose to use the metaphor Wild Woman, and because I like the Yamamoto's car, the sort of knock on the door that those words made together and in people's psyches, but ultimately that which is at the center, doesn't really have a name. And not only that, it doesn't have a gender either, but it is a force that we feel very deeply.

00;18;00;05 - 00;18;26;11
Speaker 1
And that has, I think, as Joseph Campbell put it, in the hero with a thousand faces, it has many representations. And the divine mother, the divine child, the great father, the wild woman, the Black Virgin. So there are so many representations of this force, both masculine, feminine, as well as androgynous.

00;18;26;11 - 00;18;30;02
Speaker 4
And yet you do speak about a wild woman. I think it's.

00;18;30;03 - 00;18;58;29
Speaker 1
Yes, because I've chosen that particular face or a metaphor to try to see what we can really know about this central force within us that seems to be almost without and beyond description, something powerful without it. We're very frail and we're very insubstantial with it. We're very direct, very powerful. I'd like to say with it, we don't lose our shape.

00;18;58;29 - 00;19;01;09
Speaker 1
We are what and who we are.

00;19;01;23 - 00;19;32;22
Speaker 4
And I guess the point I was sort of driving in terms of the fairy tales and the reason maybe that you would turn to fairy tales. So instead of maybe the Bible or some other sources would be that some of the say pre-Christian maybe not God has been say just pagan sort of ideals have somehow continued. Even though they may have changed or mutated, they continue to survive in the fairy tales of today.

00;19;32;24 - 00;20;00;27
Speaker 1
Oh, yes. In fact, they're they're everywhere. They're in the Talmud, they're in the Bible, they're in Kabbalah. They're they're in all the great books across the world that have survived, as well as in fairy tales and folklore and mythology. And so they're everywhere. Everywhere. I'm not a partial or impartial to any particular kind of story. I don't care where the origin is, if it's a shard of story, I would like to know more about it.

00;20;00;28 - 00;20;24;27
Speaker 1
So I will take it truly from anywhere, including religious sources that are covered over with. You might see the later conquests of Christianity and so on and so forth. Some very beautiful things in Christianity that are actually continuations of the old way. The problem, I think more so, is that there's sort of a bureaucratic Christianity and then there's a true Christianity underlying it.

00;20;25;09 - 00;20;42;01
Speaker 1
And I believe that true Christianity is merciful and loving and extremely feminine and a religious system that definitely supports the lives of women and men together.

00;20;42;01 - 00;20;58;07
Speaker 3
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Helen Keller Nothing condemned the light which shines from within. Maya Angelou.

00;20;58;07 - 00;21;03;00
Speaker 2
Why music?

00;21;04;06 - 00;21;47;10
Speaker 5
You've been listening to an archival interview of Dr. Clarissa Pink. Ella Estes, author of Women Who Run with the Wolves Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype. I read the story of the Red Shoes from chapter eight self preservation, identifying leg traps, cages and poisoned bait. Nelson Rivera is a writer of creative nonfiction who recently got her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, but even more recently was accepted to the Food and Environmental Writing Fellowship at Sterling College.

00;21;48;00 - 00;21;58;26
Speaker 5
We're both learning about podcast setting and navigating the world as writers. So here is what we learned from each other.

00;21;59;06 - 00;22;47;17
Speaker 2
I am of primary nonfiction and have been writing. I'm a late bloomer. I feel like writing is my second career. My first year was very much into housing public housing, equitable housing to exit through the spectrum of housing, urgency in housing, transitioning to permanent and subsidized housing. And as at some point, I mean, I always loved books and I've always liked to write, but I was one one of the writers who would write a true story and then hide it in and just hide it from the world.

00;22;47;28 - 00;23;13;17
Speaker 2
And I had a friend of mine who said, well, if you're not sharing what you write, then use to be selfish. And that really struck me because I don't see myself as a self. I like a selfish person. So I was like, But it makes sense because if we're writers, we have a message and we have something to say, a story to tell, and that's to be shared.

00;23;13;26 - 00;23;51;14
Speaker 2
Right. And that can mean not to me. They have to be paid, but shared. So I sort of started the writing group as a way to make myself accountable to writing. I mainly write about changing economic definitions on housing, and in that homelessness, women with gender issues mainly. So your your career has informed your writing. And yes.

00;23;51;22 - 00;24;06;01
Speaker 3
It's the most difficult thing is the decision to act the rest is merely tenacity. Amelia Earhart.

00;24;07;06 - 00;24;51;15
Speaker 2
You have identified my biggest concern when it comes to podcasting is the need to be a platform in writing. And that definitely drives some of my ideas and have debated for years on whether I should publish a YouTube channel or a podcast. And I want to. I mean, the idea sounds really fun. It sounds like something that I could have fun with at the same time.

00;24;52;02 - 00;25;31;27
Speaker 2
Time is precious. The biggest trash. I would love to have a world audience. I'm really more interested in attracting my neighbors and creating, like, working together and doing things together. Like talking to you. Even though we're not, like, right next door neighbors, we're writers here in America trying to express ourselves whether or not we're deemed, you know, commercial by whatever entities.

00;25;32;03 - 00;26;10;15
Speaker 2
You know, we just want to write, communicate and like to say create a platform is very interesting what you're saying about hosting it with a different goal. Right. As far as having your own website and or your own community locally. Because I think that a lot of us, a lot of people tend to go straight for mainstream podcast because I'm kind of mainstream, which might be the wrong terminology.

00;26;10;19 - 00;26;46;00
Speaker 2
But that's just what comes to mind because it's maybe what we think is the only option. Then we like that connected and yes, yes. When you say it's just like an audio file. So basically it's like something you report on, let's say on the phone, it's like so and we're doing this now where, yes, you put it in the right format, which is generally like an MP for file and or is that video?

00;26;46;06 - 00;26;51;04
Speaker 2
I'm already pretending this MP for MP three is one of those and.

00;26;52;04 - 00;26;52;21
Speaker 5
You have it.

00;26;52;21 - 00;26;57;08
Speaker 2
Somewhere and then you have the address to that and.

00;26;58;09 - 00;26;58;23
Speaker 5
You just.

00;26;58;23 - 00;27;15;22
Speaker 2
Submit that it's like a text file. When you call it a podcast, you have a RSS feed, and so you can set that up for yourself on your own website. Then if you use open source software like WordPress for your website.

00;27;16;13 - 00;27;18;09
Speaker 5
Then it's pretty.

00;27;18;10 - 00;27;51;06
Speaker 2
Simple to set that up. Which is interesting because the videos or the information that I researched, what tell you something a little different now would tell you that you can create it, right? And then you that made it, you know, it uses it to write and that to the audience I can still offer it to Spotify. So but the difference is that I'm not running commercials for one thing.

00;27;51;28 - 00;28;04;13
Speaker 2
So it won't be interrupted by commercials. No, Spotify picks it up, then maybe it will be so if people choose to listen to it that way or Apple Podcasts, then I have less control.

00;28;05;05 - 00;28;06;26
Speaker 5
Over how people listen.

00;28;06;26 - 00;28;20;23
Speaker 2
To that. I can still choose to offer it, and if I stay consistent, they will most likely pick it up. So the only difference is that when you come to listen and be heard dot net, you can.

00;28;20;23 - 00;28;21;12
Speaker 5
Hit the play.

00;28;21;12 - 00;28;43;06
Speaker 2
Button and you can hear the podcast right there. You don't have to go to Spotify, Apple or those places, but you can but you could listen to it for free. No commercials. And that's my whole thing. Is this, you know? Sure, I'll share it all around, everywhere. But I want to own the content right here at home first.

00;28;44;00 - 00;28;57;01
Speaker 2
Like you could start your own author's website and you probably have one, I'm guessing, and you could host your podcast from there and then offer it wherever you like.

00;28;59;03 - 00;29;30;13
Speaker 2
I believe that as writers we just have so much on what we need to do. So I think that my biggest question as far as the podcast is like how much time do you dedicate on how much time does it take? So you need to think I need to think we all need to think about how much time you actually have and then kind of translate that into how often could you do it.

00;29;30;14 - 00;30;12;13
Speaker 2
Now one thing that will affect that is how long you want the podcast to be. So if it's a 15 minute podcast with some pithy information, that's going to take you less time to produce that last minute. To another question, how did you decide what was the topic? And I know you have a general theme of listen and we heard, but under that, do you have like specific topics that you want to address every week and how that should come?

00;30;12;13 - 00;30;53;05
Speaker 2
A topic might be the wrong word for me. The tagline for the site is creating community culture, and this podcast that I'm doing now, I'm really attempting to pull all the different elements of what's being contributed to listen, to be heard. The website like to pull elements of that together to make a show, and then that would be enriched if people come to the website, they can have enrichment of all those snippets of content.

00;30;53;12 - 00;31;26;08
Speaker 2
So for example, Tony, does like live TV in the community, he calls it, and he goes to these community events and he records video interviews with people who are participating in those things. And so I don't necessarily run that whole entire interview, but I'll take a portion of it that I find interesting. And I think it kind of goes with maybe the theme of that particular show.

00;31;27;03 - 00;31;40;26
Speaker 2
And I'll combine it with an interview like this that I'm doing with you and some music that's maybe by somebody who's having a concert, say, in town.

00;31;41;11 - 00;31;42;10
Speaker 5
So to me, it's.

00;31;42;10 - 00;32;11;19
Speaker 2
About really trying to weave those elements of the community together to introduce different people to each other, hopefully, so that we'll all collaborate together to make good things happen because we all really need to do that now. I do believe that. So that's my theme. I guess my topic is can be very but my theme is creating community culture.

00;32;12;25 - 00;32;44;24
Speaker 2
And I do believe that writers have an important, a crucial part to play in that. And since I am a writer, that's my sort of area that I shine in or I like to think I do anyway. I'm especially focused on speaking to authors, whether they're fiction or nonfiction. I guess like creative writers, I would say poetry and spoken word.

00;32;45;26 - 00;33;35;25
Speaker 2
Those are all areas that I've traveled in throughout my my life. And so I'll stick with that at this point. But then that's needed. I think that as writers, we might feel a little bit isolated in reacting to the pandemic, especially a lot of, oh, maybe I'm just speaking for myself, might feel a little bit more disconnected. What we do and I mean, I know that social media is doing, but at the same time, social media seems sometimes too toxic to engage with and looking for ways outside of social media to connect with our communities.

00;33;36;01 - 00;34;16;18
Speaker 2
There's no question. Yes, exactly. I you know, I've been trying to say exactly that in different ways for four weeks now. And I think sometimes we forget, like we might be all involved on the computer trying to share things to Facebook or Twitter or wherever you hang out. I mean, my kids go to places I don't even know about, but sometimes, like, we have to remember that we also need to walk out the door and talk to people, face to face and make those connections.

00;34;16;18 - 00;34;52;22
Speaker 2
And I know, like with the pandemic, we really kind of, you know, were forced to turn away from that. But we still have to rely on our neighbors and each other in whatever capacity. And it's just important to remember that we don't actually live in a virtual world, you know, and I was interested in getting people in the street to like see maybe a bumper sticker that says listen and be heard and come to the podcast.

00;34;52;22 - 00;35;29;22
Speaker 2
Like that's as opposed to because they clicked on it from some social media site when I think I have a short interest to it. And that recently my daughter and we went to a baby show that she was invited when she was meeting some of her friends from high school. But they not last, I don't know, five or six, seven years they have been communicating strictly on the social media.

00;35;29;22 - 00;36;06;09
Speaker 2
But when she went to the baby show and she was okay for like 30 minutes and then after that 30 minutes, she said that she's really anxious and she just didn't know what else to tell anyone. So she didn't engage. And that that brought up a whole conversation about how easy, comfortable we get communicating on social media, that we forget some of the other skills that it takes for us to communicate with people.

00;36;07;05 - 00;36;45;04
Speaker 2
And yeah, I just thought that that story, like, really hit me. So what would your topic be like? And you asked me let me ask you what what how do you what do you sing in for your your podcast? So that's that's the big that's the reason. Well, it's because I noticed that you had a theme, but you were a little bit more free than what the what used to be more flexible than what usually is recommended.

00;36;45;05 - 00;37;27;05
Speaker 2
I mean, I'm just going by like YouTube video combination, right? They say, well, pick a topic and get to it. Well, I mean, I'm I'm a complex human being. I have different interests writing and how sing is just one of them. I'm also a very spiritual person. I enjoy nature. I am a mother. I'm a why. So it's really hard for me to pick one side of me that wouldn't neglect the others, especially when all these other ones influence each other so much.

00;37;27;05 - 00;38;14;00
Speaker 2
Right? Right. So I have had a very difficult time, but you started off talking about a platform as a writer, and I was thinking about that as well, you know, and and as of listen to be heard as being a platform for myself and to open that same possibilities to whoever else would come to that platform, you know, but maybe it would be helpful to zero in, on with that is like what kind of platform what does that even be?

00;38;14;00 - 00;38;45;23
Speaker 2
Let's start with what a platform means because everybody keeps saying that, you know, so a platform for a writer essentially means to me, I think that you have built up in on a potential space audience that will potentially go by your books. Is that what that means to you or do you have a different understanding? That's the understanding that I have.

00;38;45;29 - 00;39;26;04
Speaker 2
Okay. So so in that in that in that definition, then my question is, as writers, do we limit ourselves to one type of content when we're writing? If we're building a platform on one specific area, then are we then not into writing about down specific? Well, no, I don't think one thing about the Web I think that's interesting is we're really not locked into anything like you.

00;39;26;04 - 00;39;27;17
Speaker 5
Can take a concept.

00;39;27;17 - 00;39;43;09
Speaker 2
And test it out, say, okay, I'm going to do a 15 minute podcast about. So I know that my topics are always going to be about this and you could try it out.

00;39;43;29 - 00;39;45;04
Speaker 5
And even if it was.

00;39;45;04 - 00;39;54;28
Speaker 2
Like say it was fabulously successful. But then you got to thinking, I really want to be able to talk about this too. You know, where you would have.

00;39;54;28 - 00;39;55;16
Speaker 5
The option of.

00;39;56;03 - 00;40;22;00
Speaker 2
Starting a new podcast. Then you have to, you know, so I think we have to be flexible, maybe about how we think about it. You know, going back to what I was saying, my concept for this one is really just to pull together, like for the people who do contribute to listen, to be heard, it's like an extra bit of broadcasting of the content.

00;40;22;09 - 00;40;34;27
Speaker 2
It's already there, you know, on another platform because like people come to a website, maybe they don't listen to podcasts or.

00;40;35;12 - 00;40;36;09
Speaker 5
People listen to.

00;40;36;09 - 00;41;15;17
Speaker 2
Podcasts, and then they'll be like, Oh, that's really interesting. I want to find out more about that often. And they'll come to your website. And I think there's a big point because I think that then that eliminates the angle that I ask what new to Instagram. What a lengthy question today because and even to make me it is more effective in social media is the writer I mean not the writer but the content creator focused specifically on a tactic.

00;41;16;06 - 00;41;44;17
Speaker 2
Even if the videos and structure answer the same way, then it's more likely that there will get more followings. So when you think that in your own website that is one of the freedoms that you have right now, you can go to listen, to be heard and listen to this podcast. And I host the files, those audio files on the list and to be heard on a server.

00;41;45;22 - 00;42;17;04
Speaker 2
So if I want Spotify or iTunes or well, I guess it's Apple Podcasts now, any of those services one of my children uses podcast addict. There's like tons of them. All right? Some of them just use the same. They just use either Apple or Spotify. Like if you saw there, then you'll find it on their service. So those are probably the two most important ones to get to.

00;42;17;04 - 00;42;56;01
Speaker 2
First, you go to wherever the page is. They have four podcasters and you just register your RSS feed with them. There's all kinds of things where it's very helpful to have very specific, useful information, and I think that's a very valid concept for for a podcast it just depends on, you know, my idea is sort of general that I'm trying to appeal to people who want to listen to in-depth conversations with authors.

00;42;57;05 - 00;43;26;28
Speaker 2
So the topic again might change, but they'll be coming back because they want to listen to those types of conversations. All right. So there's like production time in terms of making all the contacts and appointments and actually doing the interviews. And then once you have your different audio files together, you have to think about how you'll put them together into one sound file.

00;43;27;18 - 00;44;23;10
Speaker 2
So you either need sound software like there's again, there's open source software like audacity that you don't have to pay for or you wind up subscribing for something like, you know, Adobe, I enjoy video more than audio. I might video which never if I if I do it, it would be more on on three topics and little chat writing and relating to fitness because I think there are over fitness now influence on lighting and our daily life in inspiration because I think that we got a point of religion or spiritual based, really influenced by daily life.

00;44;23;10 - 00;45;13;04
Speaker 2
So I think those three components for me are very important as a human being and I don't see myself separating them if I work to do some type of channel, I would probably combine those three. So I think maybe the biggest message for somebody starting out is not to think is so complicated. Just to remember that essentially you're just making a sound farm or in your case, if you would rather have video, you're just recording a video and you're putting it in a file in a folder somewhere and you're putting a an RSS text file.

00;45;13;04 - 00;45;46;02
Speaker 2
It happened in that same folder, moving it and bam, you have a podcast and you just have to share the URL for that text file. That's your RSS feed goes to wherever you want to and create your podcast. Do It's not that complicated, but I yeah. I want to thank you for taking the time to talk to me.

00;45;46;18 - 00;46;23;13
Speaker 2
I, I'm not sure yet what I will do because I do, I am limited in time and I really like the three minute idea. I think that would be a lot more feasible for me to to do on a consistent basis. Right? I don't necessarily have to do it weekly. You could do this bi weekly or monthly. I think consistency is the most important piece that.

00;46;25;25 - 00;46;48;19
Speaker 2
Well, I want to thank you for participating and listening and being heard, and I actually do hope to be hosting your podcast one day at once. And we heard one of them and we'll see what happens. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you, Nils.

00;46;49;10 - 00;46;57;26
Speaker 3
Living it is nowhere to go. I'd rather regret the things I've done than regret the things I haven't done. Ball. Lucille Ball.

00;46;58;08 - 00;46;59;10
Speaker 4
Tree is a.

00;46;59;10 - 00;47;07;08
Speaker 5
Broken heart. Living it is no on the stage. Looking into bright lights, late nights.

00;47;07;08 - 00;47;16;26
Speaker 6
Barroom fights, fantastic sights, inspiration and I was talking.

00;47;16;26 - 00;47;57;06
Speaker 5
To Nielsen Rivera when I moved here. Nonfiction writer Pilar Uribe shared quotes from notable women. You can find the post for this podcast at Listen and Be Heard Dot Net Net movie where you will find links to most of the references that were made. If I missed one, let me know about it. Please leave a comment with your thoughts or send me a recording of your comments to Ed and listen and be heard net and I might play it on a future podcast.

00;47;57;11 - 00;48;42;02
Speaker 5
Getting thrown into the streets while you're there. Check out the columns by Cindy Combs and Tony Robles. There's poetry videos and more to stimulate your imagination. And we're looking for submissions of your column or podcast ideas. Original Music is by Jay Rodriguez, Sierra Dan Clink provided some sound doctoring. Stick around for one last thing for Martha's Kitchen Garden, produced by Crystal Waters from last summer when the residents snapping turtles were attacking my newly adopted Muscovy.

00;48;44;13 - 00;49;00;14
Speaker 5
Okay, well, something smacks that little fish. It hung in a sock in the turtle trap. So I had to unplug my freezer for this renovation. And I have these big fish.

00;49;01;02 - 00;49;01;20
Speaker 2
What kind of fish.

00;49;01;20 - 00;49;04;19
Speaker 5
Are the ones? The bluegill ones are catfish.

00;49;05;18 - 00;49;07;10
Speaker 2
Did you get one of them out of the ponds?

00;49;07;13 - 00;49;19;13
Speaker 5
They came out of the ponds in there. Oh, you got catfish in there? Oh, yeah. Yeah, but so these are a couple of years old. These are my ex cost of actually this, like.

00;49;19;13 - 00;49;22;07
Speaker 2
Still stuff from.

00;49;22;07 - 00;49;23;13
Speaker 5
Before the divorce.

00;49;23;13 - 00;49;26;24
Speaker 2
That is finally almost the end of things.

00;49;26;24 - 00;49;42;27
Speaker 5
And one of them is because I'm finally defrosting my freezer. So I'm going to try these, this and the bait in the trap here for the turtle. And I don't know, it might just that one might fall through.

00;49;42;28 - 00;50;01;29
Speaker 2
So I think this case is bigger. I don't know if it's going to go for a dead fish, but we will find out, I suppose. Yeah, we'll see. He had a live fish in a sock before.

00;50;02;17 - 00;50;23;07
Speaker 5
No, he didn't. So I had some, like some YouTube videos where they say they like live bait. But, you know, I've heard a lot of contradictory information and maybe if it smells.

00;50;23;07 - 00;50;31;27
Speaker 6
Bait, you know, maybe it'll come in. Maybe it'll even have fooled. Look at that.

00;50;33;00 - 00;51;00;17
Speaker 5
So the thing is to leave part of it up so that the turtle can come to breathe because Kirk said, just call him and he'll come get the turtle relocated. So I'm not so worried in case I catch the alligator snapping turtle, because those are actually endangered and they say they don't exist here in South Carolina. But I have pictures of them on my property from I don't know, I have to find them.

00;51;00;17 - 00;51;12;08
Speaker 5
It was years ago, but it was definitely alligator snapping turtle. Okay. So we'll see what happens now. Hope to catch a turn.