Voices on the Side

Book Interview Series with Ashley Simpo 29.05.2026 1ч 31мин

Welcome to the Book Interview Series! This capsule of episodes is from the interviews I conducted while writing my book ⁠⁠Mom, Unfiltered⁠⁠. You'll hear from mothers, therapists, midwives, doulas, and more. Our guest today is Ashley Simpo. Ashley is a writer, editor, creative strategist, and mother. She believes storytelling shapes how we connect, create, and grow. For over a decade, Ashley has worked with brands, publishers, and creatives to craft compelling narratives and thoughtful strategies that inspire action and build meaningful connections. We are so lucky to have her stories and wisdom here on the podcast and in the book.Ashley websiteLeah website

Book Interview Series with Paris Abbas 13.05.2026 1ч 47мин

Welcome to the Book Interview Series! This capsule of episodes is from the interviews I conducted while writing my book ⁠Mom, Unfiltered⁠. You'll hear from mothers, therapists, midwives, doulas, and more. Our guest today is Paris Abbas. Paris is a mother, doctor, and free theosophist. In this interview, she shares with us the differences between maternal care here in the US and in Russia where she grew up, how she sought out a makeshift village amidst the isolation of early motherhood, and so much more.Paris InstagramLeah Instagram

Book Interview Series with Robina Khalid 06.05.2026 1ч 12мин

Welcome to the Book Interview Series! This capsule of episodes is from the interviews I conducted while writing my book Mom, Unfiltered. You'll hear from mothers, therapists, midwives, doulas, and more. Our first guest is Robina Khalid. Robina founded her homebirth practice, Small Things Grow Midwifery, in 2017. She has been attending births for over a decade and has served as primary midwife for more than 500 births. Her experiences as a working class, biracial child in the United States and in Pakistan awoke in her a deep curiosity about race, gender, and class, and the intersections between them. That curiosity initially led her to complete a PhD in English with a focus on race and gender in early America at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her experiences as a doctoral student and professor influenced her calling to midwifery, which was both spiritual and political: she believes that pregnancy and birth are sacred experiences that exist in a world often hostile to those doing the birthing, and she works to change that.Robina websiteRobina SubstackLeah website

Writers Series with Jesse Mechanic 17.04.2026 46мин

Jesse Mechanic is a columnist, essayist, and artist based in New York’s Hudson Valley. His work has been published in Mother Jones, In These Times, Huff Post, Truthout, World Post, and The Overgrown, among other publications. He is author of The Last Time We Spoke and Don't Be AF*#cking Marshmallow. Jesse is known for his in-depth coverage of human rights abuses and systemic inequality and he is committed to working diligently to dismantle the inequitable, violent, and oppressive systems that define our world. Jesse InstagramLeah Instagram

Writers Series with Bianca Mabute-Louie 10.04.2026 55мин

Bianca Mabute-Louie is a Sociology PhD candidate at Rice University, where she researches the intersections of race, religion, and politics. She is published in top academic journals, including Social Forces, Socius, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, and Sociology of Religion, as well as in public outlets like LA Times and Elle Magazine. Bianca is the author of Unassimilable: An Asian Diasporic Manifesto for the Twenty-First Century. In this hard-hitting and deeply personal book, a combination of manifesto and memoir, scholar, sociologist, and activist Bianca transforms the ways we understand race, class, American respectability, and the concept of assimilation and its impact on Asian American communities from the nineteenth century to present day.Bianca websiteLeah website

Writers Series with Kristin T. Lee 03.04.2026 49мин

Kristin T. Lee is a writer whose work has appeared in Christianity Today and Sojourners, and a primary care physician serving Boston's Chinatown community. She writes about faith, culture, books, and solidarity at The Embers. Kristin's passion is highlighting literature written by Asian and BIPOC authors via book reviews and reading groups on Instagram @ktlee.writes. Her work is informed by her experiences as an adoptive mother, host to refugees, and friend to those affected by incarceration.Kristin's book - We Mend with Gold - will be released on April 7th! Please pre-order or request it from your local library!Kristin's websiteLeah's website

Writers Series with Lena Derhally 27.03.2026 46мин

Lena is an author and a licensed psychotherapist certified in Imago Relationship Therapy. She has been published in The Washington Post and Huffington Post. She has also been interviewed for a variety of publications including Self Magazine and Glamour Magazine. Lena self-published her first book - My Daddy is a Hero - and traditionally published her second book - The Facebook Narcissist. In this episode, we talk about all things related to publishing from agents to publicists and more.Lena's websiteLeah's website

Writers Series with Jinwoo Park 23.03.2026 1ч 1мин

Jinwoo is a Korean Canadian novelist whose debut Oxford Soju Club won the Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers Award. The novel is about Korean spies of three different nationalities: North, South, and American. A tale of deception, espionage, and identity - it is quite apt for these times.We talk about parenting our mixed race children, pride in our shared Korean culture which has survived war and occupation, and how to stay on track as a writer.Jinwoo websiteLeah website

Writers Series with Molly Crabapple 14.03.2026 49мин

Molly Crabapple is an artist and writer. She is the co-author of Brothers of the Gun, an illustrated collaboration with Syrian war journalist Marwan Hisham, which was a NY Times Notable Book. Her memoir, Drawing Blood, received global praise and attention. Her animated films have won two Emmys and an Edward R. Murrow Award. Molly’s reportage has been published in the New York Times, New York Review of Books, The Paris Review, Vanity Fair, The Guardian, The New Yorker and Rolling Stone. She was the 2019 artist-in-residence at NYU’s Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies in 2019, a New America fellow in 2020, and the winner of the Bernhardt Labor Journalism Award in 2022. In 2023, she was a fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library.Molly's third book, ⁠Here Where We Live is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund,⁠ will be released by One World/Random House in April 2026. Please PRE-ORDER if you'd like to support her work and artistry!Molly websiteLeah website

Writers Series with Yumi Sakugawa 08.03.2026 50мин

We are so excited for another inspiring and heart-opening conversation with Yumi!Yumi is a second-generation Japanese-Okinawan-American interdisciplinary artist and the author of several ⁠books⁠ including her latest eBook: ⁠Spells for Transforming Limerance into Liberation⁠.Yumi reminds us that we are creative, playful, and imperfect beings.⁠Yumi's website⁠Yumi's recommended tool: ⁠Brick⁠⁠Leah's website

Writers Series with Dr. Jaiya John 25.02.2026 1ч 18мин

Dr. Jaiya John was orphan-born on ancient Indigenous Anasazi and Pueblo lands in the high desert of New Mexico, and is an internationally recognized ancestral Baba, freedom worker, medicine poet, and keynote speaker. Jaiya is the founder of Soul Water Rising, a global rehumanizing mission to eradicate oppression. The mission has donated thousands of Jaiya’s books in support of social healing, and offers grants to displaced and vulnerable youth. He is the author of numerous books, including Daughter Drink This Water, We Birth Freedom at Dawn, Fragrance After Rain, and Freedom: Medicine Words for your Brave Revolution. Jaiya writes, narrates, and produces the podcast, I Will Read for You: The Voice and Writings of Jaiya John, and is the founder of The Gathering, a global initiative and tour reviving traditional gathering and storytelling practices to fertilize social healing and liberation. Jaiya is a former professor of social psychology at Howard University, and has spoken to over a million people worldwide and audiences as large as several thousand. He holds doctorate and master’s degrees in social psychology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he was a National Science Foundation Fellow with a focus on intergroup and race relations. As an undergraduate, he attended Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, and lived in Kathmandu, Nepal, where he studied Tibetan Holistic Medicine through independent research with Tibetan doctors and trekked to the base camp of Mt. Everest. He is a Lewis & Clark College Distinguished Alumni Award recipient. Jaiya's Indigenous soul dreams of frybread, sweetgrass, bamboo in the breeze, and turtle lakes whose poetry is peace.Jaiya WebsiteLeah Website

Writers Series with J.S. Park - 박준 22.02.2026 1ч 2мин

J.S. Park is a hospital chaplain, published author, and online educator. For ten years he has been an interfaith chaplain at a 1000+ bed hospital that is designated a Level 1 Trauma Center. His role includes grief support, attending every death, trauma, and Code Blue, and end-of-life care. J.S. has been interviewed by CNN, CBS News, Good Morning America, The Today Show, Bay News 9, and FOX13 Tampa Bay, among others, for his work in death and dying. He is the author of As Long as You Need: Permission to Grieve, and an upcoming book on contending with our family-of-origin and family dynamics.J.S. InstagramLeah Instagram

Writers Series with Benjamin Faye 13.02.2026 1ч 5мин

Benji is a musician, writer, and co-host of the White Homework podcast. As an adoptee, exvangelical, and spiritual abuse survivor, he advocates for justice and humanity through the lens of decolonization.A week before we recorded this conversation, Benji's work was plagiarized by an account with over 1 million followers. As a fellow writer whose work has been plagiarized, I wanted to highlight this often quiet extraction of the labor and artistry of us folks of the global majority. I share one of my personal experiences in the introduction of the episode.May we all continue speaking up for all injustices, big and small. It all matters as we work to build a more liberated existence for all.Support Benji's workBenji's InstagramLeah's Instagram

Writers Series with Nancy Jooyoun Kim 06.02.2026 51мин

Nancy Jooyoun Kim is the New York Times bestselling author of What We Kept to Ourselves and The Last Story of Mina Lee, a Reese’s Book Club pick. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she now lives in the Bay Area and teaches at the University of San Francisco.Our conversation calls in joy, art, ancestors, and a new world...the medicine we all need in this moment.Nancy websiteLeah website

Writers Series with Fariha Róisín 30.01.2026 1ч 36мин

Fariha is a Muslim queer Bangladeshi who is interested in the margins, liminality, otherness, and the mercurial nature of being. Their work has pioneered a refreshing and renewed conversation about wellness, contemporary Islam, degrowth and queer identities.Fariha’s published works include books of poetry, a journal called Being In Your Body, and a novel named Like A Bird which was named one of the Best Books of 2020 by NPR, Globe and Mail, Harper’s Bazaar, among many other accolades. Their first work of non-fiction Who Is Wellness For? was released in 2022 and they’re currently working on multiple books.PLEASE NOTE: This episode comes with **content warnings** as we talk about sexual abuse, parental abuse, suicide, and related topics. Both Fariha and I share experiences of our childhoods which have compelled and inspired us to write. It is a deeply personal and emotional conversation which ultimately lands on hope, healing, and love.Fariha websiteLeah website

Writers Series with Joon Ae HK 23.01.2026 55мин

Welcome to the Writers Series on Voices on the Side! As part of celebrating my upcoming book - Mom, Unfiltered: Maternal Mental Health and Finding Freedom through Motherhood - I'll be focusing the podcast on conversations with fellow writers. From authors to essayists to journalists and professors, we are going to be talking about all things writing. In this first episode of the series, Joon Ae takes the position of host and interviewer and asks me about the book and how I became a writer. If you have a favorite writer you'd love to hear from or a specific question you're wondering about, leave it for me in the reviews (Apple) or comments (Spotify). Joon Ae websiteLeah website

Yoga as Embodied Resistance with Anjali Rao 22.01.2026 42мин

Anjali Rao is an author, yoga educator and practitioner. She brings an intersectional and decolonial feminist lens to the study of philosophy and yoga history integrating storytelling, art and poetry. Emphasizing an embodied approach, her work interrogates the link between religions, politics and yoga. She is on the faculty of multiple yoga teacher training programs—her areas of specialization includes deconstructing the dynamics between caste, gender, nationalism and colonialism. She is the host of The Love of Yoga podcast bridging scholarship, activism and yoga. Anjali's book Yoga As Embodied Resistance: A Feminist Lens in Caste, Gender And Sacred Resilience in Yoga History was recently selected as one of the top 10 most insightful yoga books by Yoga Journal.Anjali websiteLeah website

Creating Social Change with Kavita Das 22.01.2026 1ч 6мин

Kavita Das is a an author and mother who has worked for social change for close to fifteen years, addressing issues ranging from community and housing inequities, to public health disparities, to racial injustice. Her first book Poignant Song: The Life and Music of Lakshmi Shankar tells the life story of Grammy-nominated Hindustani singer Lakshmi Shankar.Kavita has been a regular contributor to NBC News Asian America, Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Rumpus. In addition, her work has been published in Salon, WIRED, Poets & Writers, Catapult, LitHub, Tin House, Longreads, Kenyon Review, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Guernica, McSweeney’s, Fast Company, Quartz, Colorlines, Romper, and elsewhere. Kavita created the popular “Writing About Social Issues” nonfiction seminar, which inspired Craft and Conscience, and has taught at the New School and continues to teach across multiple venues and serve as a guest lecturer. Kavita Das is currently a Masters in Fine Arts candidate in creative nonfiction and screenwriting at Antioch University where she is the Eloise Klein Healy Scholar. Previously, she received a B.A. in Urban Studies from Bryn Mawr College. She lives in her hometown of New York City and tries to keep up with the city that never sleeps and her six-year-old daughter Daya.

The Liberatory Path with Helio 20.01.2026 1ч 34мин

It was a delight to welcome Helio - aka @jupiterbaal - back to the show. Helio is a history and politics content creator and essayist. We can talk about anything and everything, and we pretty much do. It's a long one, so grab a cuppa or take us on a walk with you and join in on the conversation. ⁠Helio IG⁠⁠Leah IG⁠⁠⁠

Creating with Color with Joanna Ho 19.12.2025 57мин

Joanna Ho is the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of many children’s books including my favorite, Eyes that Kiss in the Corners. She is a writer, educator, and mother with a passion for anti-bias, anti-racism, and equity work. She co-hosts the Kidlit Happy Hour podcast.In our conversation, we talk about the need to build against censorship and the hope we both feel in seeing the people - and especially the children - persist against silencing. We also hear about Joanna’s experience from ideation to publishing to becoming a bestseller. She is an inspiring example of someone who refuses to compromises her values and despite facing challenges, continues to bring her creative work to life.Joanna is on the leadership team of Authors Against Book Bans, which she encourages all creators - authors, writers, illustrators - to join here.Joanna websiteJoanna IGLeah IG