The Babblery RADIO-READY

NOTE: The audio of this episode is the broadcast version of this episode for radio station use only. Visit BABBLERY.com for the full stream, more information, transcript, and links. Visit BABBLERY.com for more information. About The Babblery: The Babblery features conversations about who we are and how we got this way. Modern humans can seem […]

NOTE: The audio of this episode is the broadcast version of this episode for radio stations only. Visit BABBLERY.com for the full stream, more information, transcript, and links.  

NOTE: The audio of this episode is the broadcast version of this episode for radio stations only. Visit BABBLERY.com for the full stream, more information, transcript, and links.  

  In her childhood, filmmaker Alexandrine Benjamin experienced the struggles of life in Haiti, a country with a troubled past and present. She had to work hard for every step of her education and career. When it came to making her first short feature film, there was no question that she would depict Haiti with […]

  Sometimes all it takes to change lives is a simple question. One day at her piano lesson, LaDoris Cordell asked her teacher, Jodi Gandolfi, if there were any Black composers of concert music. Concert music is a more inclusive term for what many people know as “classical” music: art songs, symphonies, opera, chamber music. […]

American women are so entrenched in our system of birth that it’s hard to see other possibilities, but doula Anne Wallen and the women she works with and trains are evangelical about how different it could be. In this conversation, Anne explores the ‘typical’ doctor-led birth, then describes the births she assists. The contrasts could […]

Shilpi Chhotray is a storyteller with a purpose. An environmentalist from an early age, her perspective has developed and deepened during her career. Having found inspiration in the social justice movement, she and her production team are now embarking on a project to tell stories about environmental justice through “A People’s Climate.” The new podcast […]

In feminist scholar Dr. Bettina Aptheker’s early years, she found herself front and center in the 1960s controversy over free speech. As a young academic, she found herself mired in a legal dispute over freedom of association. And throughout her career, she has been able to push boundaries due to academic freedom. Recently Bettina gave […]

Dr. Eve V. Clark has spent a career in academia pursuing one seemingly simple question: How do children learn to talk? The theory in vogue at the beginning of her career was advanced by Noam Chomsky, whose theory of Universal Grammar was all the rage amongst linguists. As a woman outnumbered by men, Eve pursued […]

On April 5, 2025 Dr. Heather Ford stood at the steps of the Santa Cruz County Building, joining other scientists around the United States to protest the Trump Administration’s witch hunt against his imagined “woke science agenda.” Since World War II, the US has seen a broadly bipartisan support for the federal funding of science, […]

Why are you proud to be American? In these interviews at an Independence Day parade on Coastal California, residents talk about reaching for their pride at a time when our political landscape is so fraught.

with Joanne Foster and Patrice Vecchione What is creativity, how can we nurture it, and what can it do for us? In this conversation we speak about creativity from two directions: Dr. Joanne Foster researches and writes about creativity in education, and Patrice Vecchione teaches and practices creativity in her writing and visual art. Interviewed […]

Sharon Sewell-Fairman’s path to become CEO and President of New York City-based nonprofit Women Creating Change was hardly set at birth. She started life in a rural area of Jamaica, her only advantage being her family’s emphasis on the importance of education. Sharon pins her success on the support of women: her grandmother and mother […]

Carol Fisher Saller moved from her career as an editor to a writer of children’s books not knowing that she was witnessing the end of an era. Her first books were published by traditional, mainstream publishers who were running their businesses the way they had been run for decades. Then Carol, along with many other […]

On-the-street interviews by Suki Wessling: On April 5, 2025, people across the United States took to the streets for rallies branded “Hands Off.” I particularly appreciated that theme once I arrived at our local rally in Santa Cruz, CA. Why? Because we’ve got to stop this us and them thing. All of us depend on […]

Brooke Berman is a first-time film director. She’s also a middle-aged woman, a mom, and a wife with a full writing career under her belt. In this conversation, we explore how she got to the point of directing her film, Ramona at Midlife, and what she learned in the process. Brooke’s film is not autobiographical, […]

A special edition of the Babblery in recognition of Black History Month. I was ambivalent about going anywhere on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, this year otherwise known as Inauguration Day. It seemed like the two events were canceling each other out in my brain, creating a longing for pure nothingness. But a path to […]

Composer Anne Hege talks about music and the body, using technology in music, and the life of working musicians.

After a long career at CBS as a TV and online content producer, Stephanie Jacobs and her wife came west for a warmer climate, good wine, and proximity to family. She initially connected to the Babblery to speak about her career and her broad experience in American politics, but this conversation took an unexpected turn. […]

In this conversation, host Suki Wessling speaks with writer, researcher, designer and entrepreneur Brenda Laurel about how girls play and what that means for women and game designers. We talk about the relationship between theater and gaming, and how the gaming world grew to change the way children live and develop. We talk about the […]

“Every time I danced,  I thought about the gratitude I had to move my body when simultaneously my mother was bound to a wheelchair. It shifted my perspective on the gift of life.” – Nicole Tetreault In this wide-ranging interview, we explore how neuroscientist, author, and meditation teacher Nicole Tetreault managed to step across what was once a […]

How do you talk to people you don’t agree with so that you can continue the conversation? Karin Tamerius was passionate about politics as a young person, but she also noticed that her arguments with family didn’t go anywhere. Eventually, Karin melded her early political career with training in psychiatry to create a method of […]

Warning: This episode invokes “the G-word,” and by that we mean gifted. It’s the term used by educators, psychologists, and parents, despite the fact that everyone knows it evokes a whiff of elitism and implies that others have no gifts. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. In this episode, host Suki Wessling […]

“In the next six years, one of the biggest wealth transfers this country has ever seen is happening. And by 2030, women are going to control $30 trillion in this economy.” Janine Firpo Many of us find trips to new places inspiring. For Janine Firpo, what started with a getaway led to a career change […]

What happens when your children don’t meet society’s expectations for development and behavior? Rebecca and Wendy agreed to an interview for last month’s “Motherhood in the 21st Century” episode, but as soon as we began to talk, it was clear that their perspectives as mothers were worth exploring in more depth. We only used first […]

A deep connection to humanity This month’s episode delves into a common refrain heard from young women contemplating motherhood: “It sounds so hard!” According to the moms interviewed for The Babblery, it is hard, but it’s also an experience like no other, one that leads women to a sense of deep satisfaction. Listen to women, […]

Jana Marcus So what happens when a photographer, a mature woman herself, welcomes older women into her studio to get the full glamour treatment? In this episode, we explore how a session with Santa Cruz photographer Jana Marcus inspired and thrilled the women who took part. Even though beauty is supposed to be a superficial […]

Ever wondered about the voices you hear on KSQD? You might tune in and hear an intriguing conversation about dreams and psychedeliccs on Saturday. Or maybe you were driving on a Monday at 5 and heard a deeply researched piece about local infrastructure. Or your political ideas were challenged by a deep conversation about an […]

“We need to get away from the violence in our speech and try to develop one filled with loving kindness, filled with compassion, filled with a vision of justice that’s not vengeful.” These are the words of Bettina Aptheker, noted feminist scholar who is often described as a “radical” feminist. In conversation about her life, […]

Umi is unusual in the field of herpetology, not only is she often the only woman in the room, but she is definitely the only woman in a headscarf. Over the years, many have suggested that she tell her story. But Umi realized that her story really wasn’t all that unique. She joined with two […]

The stories we tell about ourselves have long focused on men’s experiences. The story of the United States is no exception: American women, especially working women, have not been included in our history the way that men have. Carolyn Zola is one of the budding historians working to rectify the invisibility of American women in […]

KSQD Chief Engineer Sandy Stone, also known as the founder of Transgender Studies, sits down with the Babblery to talk about the question that pursued her through much of her young life: What does it mean for her to be a woman? Sandy’s answer to that question, and her generous view of the right for […]

Book artist Felicia Rice, UCSC emeritus professor and longtime former resident of Santa Cruz County, joins host Suki Wessling on The Babblery to talk about her life as an artist, a mom, and a community member. Felicia lost her home, her studio, and her life’s work in the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex fire, and has […]

What happens when women feel open to telling their stories, even when they aren’t professional writers? When writer Julia Nusbaum was a graduate student, the course of her life changed in answer to this question. This episode features an in-depth exploration of women’s storytelling, from talking about the roots of Julia’s business, Herstry, to the […]

Her Most Authentic Self: Women in Comedy This episode features two amazing funny women, Karin Babbitt and Leah Rogers, speaking from the heart. For them, and for all comedians of their ilk, comedy is about bringing their authentic selves to the stage. It’s about being able to express deep, difficult feelings and ideas in a […]

The Babblery is a podcast about women’s lives, and though identified female at birth, transgender men are not women. Recent events underscore, however, that LGBTQ rights and women’s rights are deeply entwined. And people’s views of pregnancy and birth are intrinsically tied to their perspectives on women. What can the experiences of transgender men who […]

“If you were a landscape”: Women walking, creating, and becoming This new podcast from The Babblery, featured on Talk of the Bay, explores the importance of walking in the writing lives of two women, Patrice Vecchione and Tania Romanov. Host Suki Wessling leads them through a conversation about their books about walking, as well as […]

by Suki Wessling When I found out that Santa Cruz had a female lighthouse keeper for 31 years, I naively wondered whether there were other female lighthouse keepers in her time. It turns out that Victorian women lighthouse keepers were a “thing”—stunningly, at the turn of the 20th century there were at least four of […]

Growing and making a great life “The nurturing instinct of women brings a new perspective and quality to the wine industry.  Our attention to detail, patience and emotional stamina coincide well with the painstaking winemaking process.  Women are creators and their skills can bear rich fruit. It is a satisfying lifestyle from vintage to vintage.” […]

In this episode of The Babblery on Talk of the Bay, host Suki Wessling speaks with three women scientists, Nasreen Broomandkhoshbacht, Shanna Howard, and Sarah Claus, who study and work at UC Santa Cruz. Although they love the school and their work and studies, they say that women face implicit biases that impede their progress. […]

On Talk of the Bay: When Russia attacked Ukraine, Lidiya was safe back in Kansas with her family. But it didn’t seem right just to sit there, so this teacher and homeschooling mom helped evacuate vulnerable people and learned to source gear and medicines for the military.  When Kiev was hit with bombs, Victoria was […]