Listen as Del Criscenzo interviews Samantha Taylor and Megan Snelling. Samantha Taylor is a student advocate working for the Women’s Resource Center at Portland Community College Sylvania campus. Samantha started by discussing the Women’s Resource Center and the services and resources they have available for PCC students. She introduced the Illumination Project an interactive theater program at PCC designed to address issues of discrimination to end oppression on campus. We were also joined by Megan Snelling who is a co-producer for this year’s production of the Vagina Monologues. She discussed the up-coming performances and why this is a PCC tradition. Megan read The Happy Vagina Fact Monologue and described her experiences being part of the Vigina Monologues production and of the Illumination Project. She improvised a scene with Samantha  to demonstrate how PCC uses interactive theater to address issues of discrimination. 2 powerful women working hard towards social change!

New Bread and Roses host, Del Criscenzo interviews Madleine See. Maddie is a community member who has chosen the un-easy career of social work. Born and raised in Idaho, Maddie moved to Portland 11 years ago to attend school. She received her bachelor in Social Work from the University of Portland and her Master’s degree of Social work from Portland State University. Maddie is a licensed clinical social worker or LCSW who has worked as a child therapist for the past 5 years providing intensive services.

She discusses with us her choice of career and the challenges of social work. She also shades some light on children mental illnesses and shares with the audience important information about community resources available to families.

Bread and Roses hosts Leigh Anne Kranz, Delphine Criszensco and Ashley Thirstrup interview Lidia Yuknavitch, a local writer, teacher, activist and feminist. She is the author of three works of short fiction and literary criticism.  She is an Instructor of English and Women’s Studies Advisor at Mt Hood Community College.   

Her recent memoir, The Chronology of Water: A Memoir is a personal story, though universal. She was born to an angry man’s house, where tears got her sent to the crybaby corner and her voice left for years. She found solace in her sister and swimming, water and words, and a journal hidden under her bed, writing her voice back.

Water got her out of that house, a swimming scholarship to Texas Tech, sheer propulsion of body and will. It was a narrow escape. With rage to burn, she rebelled in the ways that hurt women do, using her body as a battering ram to feel nothing.

The stillbirth of her firstborn, a daughter, finally made her go numb.

It was water and rocks, good mentors and men, art and words, that introduced her to her intellect and made her feel—and write. She found her tribe, gave birth to a son, and made her own happy home.

A universal hero’s journey.

Lidia discusses the memoir, as well as her latest literary works.