Fireside with Blair Hodges

If you lost touch with reality, how would you even tell the difference? That's the question Sarah Labrie had to confront after her mother was found on the side of a Houston freeway in the midst of a schizophrenic break. And she also wondered, "Am I next?" In this candid conversation, Sarah discusses growing up between extremes of adoration and abuse, witnessing a parent’s mental illness, struggling with perfectionism, and looking for healthy relationships, until the weight of her own artistic ambition almost brought her to mental collapse. We explore parallel worlds—of mother and daughter, of friendship and rupture, of the selves we become, the selves we might have been, and the selves that might yet be out there, somewhere. We're talking about Sarah's memoir, No One Gets to Fall Apart. Full transcript is available here at relationscapes.org.  About the Guest Sarah LaBrie is author of No One Gets to Fall Apart: A Memoir (HarperCollins, 2024), a New York Times Notable Book and finalist for the Writers League of Texas Book Award. She's also a television writer whose credits include Minx, Blindspotting, Made for Love, Love, Victor and Beauty, a Beauty and the Beast prequel for Disney+. She has received fellowships from Yaddo, MacDowell and the Austin Film Society. Her work has been performed at the Apollo Theater and at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Learn more at sarahlabrielivesinlosangeles.com.

Dogs didn’t just become our companions. They helped make us human. They've been by our side for tens of thousands of years, helping us herd and hunt, migrate, heal, grieve, fight war, imagine the afterlife, and more. Religion and environmental studies scholar Laura Hobgood joins us to explore the long, complicated co-evolution of humans and dogs—how humans have loved, used, protected, and sometimes harmed them in return. Her book is called A Dog’s History of the World: Canines and the Domestication of Humans. Whether you love dogs, miss one deeply, or have never thought much about them at all, this episode will change how you see our oldest animal partner. Even if you aren't a dog person, you're still kind of a dog person! Full transcript is available at relationscapes.org. ABOUT THE GUEST Dr. Laura Hobgood is co-chair of the Environmental Studies program and past chair of the Religion program at Southwestern University. She also holds the Elizabeth Root Paden Chair in Religion and Environmental Studies. Hobgood received her Ph.D. from St. Louis University and her M.Div. from Vanderbilt University. She is author of A Dog’s History of the World: Canines and the Domestication of Humans.

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE IN THE RELATIONSCAPES FEED NOW! Some songs wait decades before they reveal what they’re really about. Back in the 90s when 20-year-old Steven Page wrote “What a Good Boy,” he understood it as a plea to ease up on restrictive gender expectations that harmed boys and girls. But as he performed it over the years, he realized it was about much more than that. The song can be understood as a stirring anthem exploring gender identity, wrestling against the binary world's hostility to people who don't fit the mold, trans, nonbinary, genderqueer, gay, or otherwise. Page, a founding member of the smash-hit band Barenaked Ladies and an artist now working deeply in his solo career, has spent much of his life writing songs that explore vulnerability, humor, grief, and joy. His instinct to blend comedy with pathos has made his work resonate in ways he couldn’t have predicted. Page reflects on how that song came to be, how meaning changes over time, and on the responsibility artists carry when their work becomes part of someone else’s becoming. Full transcript is available at relationscapes.org. But you'll want to hear this one! ABOUT THE GUEST Steven Page is a Canadian musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and founding member of the music group Barenaked Ladies. Since going solo, Page has released five albums, he performs with groups like the Trans-Canada Highwaymen, and he publicly advocates on issues including mental and behavioral health. He has three sons and lives in New York with his partner, Christine Benedicto. I'm not sure if he has any dogs or cats, and I forgot to ask him. Join his Patreon!.

When George M. Johnson was a kid growing up in New Jersey, they loved Black History Month. They were thrilled to learn about the people who shaped American history for the better. But as they got older, they started noticing things were missing—hidden stories that might have meant the most to a queer kid like they were. George was especially drawn to one of the most dazzling moments in Black history, the Harlem Renaissance. They went searching for what had been covered up, forgotten, or erased, and resurrected those stories in their book, Flamboyants: The Queer Harlem Renaissance I Wish I'd Known. It's a celebration of the Black queer writers, performers, and activists of 1920s America. George M. Johnson joins us to talk about Black and queer culture—how it impacted the past, how it enlivens our present, and how it can open up new possibilities for the future. This is a conversation about truth-telling, lineage, identity, and the stories that save us when we finally get to hear them. Full transcript is available at relationscapes.org. ABOUT THE GUEST George M. Johnson is an award-winning Black non-binary writer, author, and activist. They are the author of the bestselling Young Adult memoir All Boys Aren’t Blue discussing their adolescence growing up as a young Black Queer boy in New Jersey. Their other books include Flamboyants: The Queer Harlem Renaissance I Wish I'd Known, and There's Always Next Year. George has also published in places like Teen Vogue, The Root, Essence, Ebony, THEM, and The Grio.

Is it possible to raise kind, feminist boys in our era of manosphere misogyny? Sonora Jha, an Indian-American immigrant and single mother, says yes. But it takes a lot more than good intentions.  She reflects on raising her son across cultures, teaching empathy through film, talking frankly about sex, consent, and body image, and modeling apology without demanding forgiveness. She pushes back on the idea that feminism harms boys, showing how it can actually free them from shame, silence, and isolation. Sonora Jha joins us to talk about her book, "How to Raise a Feminist Son: Motherhood, Masculinity, and the Making of My Family." Full transcript is available here at relationscapes.org.  ABOUT THE GUEST After a career in journalism in India and Singapore, Dr. Sonora Jha became a professor at Seattle University. She is author of four books, including How to Raise a Feminist Son (2021). Her novels include The Laughter, which won the 2024 Washington State Book Award for Fiction and was named one of the Best Books of 2023 by the New Yorker, NPR, and others, Foreign (2013), a finalist for the Shakti Bhatt Prize and the Hindu Prize, and her latest, Intemperance.