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Show notes are available at QueenofPeaches.com. Today I am simply delighted to be in conversation with Jeanette Elaine Dubois. Jeanette is a member of the Motion Picture Editors Guild and has 25 years of experience cutting a wide variety of projects for film and television. She’s worked on the Emmy Award-winning shows Super Soul Sessions with Oprah Winfrey and Artbound on PBS, as well as Emmy-nominated documentaries including The Day My God Died. Recently she’s worked for Steve Harvey’s Steve on Watch and has just completed editing her second season of Married to Real Estate starring Egypt Sherrod on HGTV and MAX. Elaine is also often called upon for voiceover work, and has written, produced, directed, and edited her own short films as well. At the end of 2019, Jeanette self-published her first book, the memoir Things My Father Never Knew He Taught Me: Seven Lessons from a Life, which is available on Amazon now. And be on the look for the audiobook version to be released on Audible later on in 2024.

Show notes are available at QueenofPeaches.com. This week I am absolutely thrilled to share my conversation with the writer Michael O’Donnell. Michael is the author of the novel Above the Fire. Published by Blackstone Publishing in December 2023, Above the Fire crystallizes the relationship between a father and son as they survive a winter of isolation. The book has received starred reviews from Booklist and Shelf Awareness, and the audiobook edition recently won the AudioFile Earphones Award. Michael’s nonfiction writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and other publications. He has been a member of the National Book Critics Circle since 2005. An attorney by profession, he clerked for Judge Ann Claire Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and now practices law in Chicago. He earned his bachelor’s degree with distinction from Indiana University in 2001 and his law degree magna cum laude from Boston College in 2004.

Show notes are available at QueenofPeaches.com. This week I am absolutely thrilled to be in conversation with Hayley J. Croom of Paintbox Soapworks. Queer, witchy, feminist, and leftist-owned since 2009, Paintbox Soapworks is devoted to making small batch soaps, skincare, and bath products in unique and irreverent scents. It’s a one-person show, and each product is made by hand using vegan friendly, coconut-free custom formulas with no SLS, parabens, or phthalates. Their goal is to get you clean and smelling amazing, and to work a little magic with every blend they make to transform and transport you.

Show notes are available at QueenofPeaches.com. For this first episode of 2024, I’m really excited to share my conversation with Hollywood costume supervisor Sara Walbridge. Sara is a graduate of The Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago and has been steadily working in Hollywood for over 20 years. Some of her best known TV projects include Love and Death, Barry, GLOW, and True Blood, and her film credits include Don’t Look Up, Space Jam: A New Legacy, Vice, and Beautiful Boy. In our chat today, she gives me the lowdown on how costume supervising is like solving a puzzle; how the immediate aftermath of 9/11 inadvertently shaped the trajectory of her career; why if you don’t notice the costumes in a movie or TV show, that actually means they’ve been executed really well; what the most pressing concerns about AI are for costume departments; the kinds of questions that get tossed around in the group chat of the so-called Costume Mafia; why working as a costume supervisor is secretly kind of a blue-collar job; and why she nerds out about making scale maps of changing tents for huge groups of extras. Plus, since we’re well into awards season now, Sara highlights some of her favorite costuming moments from the year gone by that she hopes will be recognized by voters. For my Letterboxd users out there, I’ve created a list featuring all the films we talk about in this episode. Links to that and other show notes will be available on my blog QueenofPeaches.com.

Show notes are available at QueenofPeaches.com. Rather than release a normal interview episode today, I thought I’d just put a little audio trinket in your stocking, so to speak. I’d like to read a short selection from a book called "Atargatis," which is by the English writer, lecturer, hypnotherapist, and Reiki Master Paul Weston. Featuring original musical accompaniment by Brian Cremins.

Show notes are available at QueenofPeaches.com. Today I’m incredibly psyched to share with you my conversation with science writer and medical intuitive Allison Clark. Allison is a heart-centered, holistically-minded healer who takes into consideration all aspects of a person—not just their body and not just their soul. Her approach is an alchemy of years of training, scientific research, and personal mind, body, and spirit work. She’s studied clairvoyant and energy healing techniques for well over a decade and has learned from experts including Cyndi Dale, Kelly Meehan, Bruce Lipton, and Robert Moss. She also graduated with honors from the Open University of Catalonia with a master’s degree in nutrition with a focus on clinical nutrition and nutrigenomics and is also triple-certified as a functional nutritionist, a culinary nutrition expert, and a holistic health coach. Her current mission as a healer is to help women learn to trust their intuition and embrace their unique spirit so that they can live a fulfilled life.

Show notes are available at ⁠QueenofPeaches.com⁠. I’m delighted to be in conversation with visual artist and graphic designer Sadie Teper. Sadie is the founder and owner of Twentysome Design. Twentysome is a lady-powered feminist stationery and gift brand. Sadie’s design background enables her to create bright and colorful hand-lettered designs that empower and inspire others to spread the message of positive change while still encompassing cheeky wit and feminist fun. We talk about the origin of her brand name; how the text on her first greeting cards was really just an extension of her own inner monologue; how her art classes in college taught her how to not take personal criticism too seriously; the reason why the stationery industry isn’t particularly cutthroat; and the big difference between someone suggesting a topic for a card and someone suggesting the exact wording for a card.

Show notes are available at QueenofPeaches.com. Today on I'll Follow You, I am super excited to bring you my conversation with the author and editor Jerome Pohlen. Jerry has written 23 books for both adults and children, including Oddball Illinois (which is the flagship title of the larger Oddball travel book series), The Apollo Missions for Kids, Albert Einstein and Relativity for Kids, Gay & Lesbian History for Kids, and Chicago Baby, as well as articles and op-eds for the Los Angeles Times, Advocate, and the Chicago Reader. Since 2001, he has worked for publishing house Chicago Review Press where, as an acquisitions editor, he signs up adult nonfiction in categories including US history, LGBTQIA, nature, popular science, and DIY, along with children’s nonfiction and activity books. Our wide-ranging chat is roughly broken up into three distinct sections: we talk about his work as a writer, his father’s work as an engineer on both the Apollo and Viking space missions, and Jerry’s run for Congress as a Green Party candidate in Illinois in 2008.

Show notes are available at QueenofPeaches.com. Today I am delighted to be in conversation with pianist and healer Marta Johnson. Marta’s first career was as a professional pianist, mostly working in the classical and musical theater worlds in Chicago. However, a crisis of performance anxiety brought her to the world of inner healing and spiritual growth. And now she uses Internal Family Systems and AuraTransformation in her own life as well as in her professional practice with others. If you’ve never heard of Internal Family Systems, much less AuraTransformation, don’t worry—they’re both a big part of what we’ll be talking about today. You’ll be getting a whole crash course on not just what they are, but also why and how they can be super helpful for addressing a range of psychological and spiritual concerns.

Show notes are available at QueenofPeaches.com. I am so excited to share with you my conversation with my very dear, very funny, and very brilliant friend Cemal Ozdemir. Cemal spent nearly 30 years with the firm Dauby O’Connor & Zaleski (DOZ), a leader in affordable housing and real estate accounting, starting there as an intern in 1993 and ultimately becoming Chief Executive Officer in early 2020. He stepped down in 2022 to focus exclusively on his newest project, Ozwell Fitness, an elevated wellness studio that combines the two core elements of wellness–fitness and recovery–into a single, seamless experience. He has a degree in business and accounting from Indiana University and has also taken over 2,000 group fitness classes, with Orangetheory, CycleBar, Fit Flex Fly, Shred 415, Peloton Tread and bike, Flywheel, and SoulCycle as well as several hundred hours of personal training.

Show notes are available at QueenofPeaches.com. Today on I’ll Follow You, I’m in conversation with two of the most influential people in my musical life, Ed Bialon and Don Graves. Ed and Don were members of my dad’s band, the Terry Felus Trio, for about ten years, from the early 1970s through the early 1980s. The Terry Felus Trio was known and loved around Northwest Indiana as a great party band, getting hired to play for wedding receptions, milestone anniversary celebrations, and New Year’s Eve shows, though they were also frequently booked at local venues like Mama Puntillo’s in Highland, Indiana, and Sarti’s Restaurant and Lounge in East Chicago. I wanted to sit down with them and get the scoop on how exactly they did what they did. I wanted to dig into the history of how they all knew each other, where and how they all trained as musicians, and get a glimpse into this now mostly bygone era of live bands who didn’t try to sound like anyone but themselves. 

Show notes are available at QueenofPeaches.com. Today on I’ll Follow You, I’m super excited to share my recent conversation with author and journalist Saga Briggs. If you’re listening to this on the day that the episode initially goes live, Saga’s first book will be officially published tomorrow, Tuesday, September 19. It’s called How to Change Your Body: The Science of Interoception and Healing Through Connection to Yourself and Others and, as you’ll hear me enthusiastically state at the top of our chat, I really think everyone should read it.  Beyond the book, she’s written articles for Scientific American, Aeon+Psyche, and DoubleBlind magazine and has worked as an editor for both the MIND European Foundation for Psychedelic Science and the digital magazine InformED. She grew up in the Pacific Northwest but is currently based in Berlin.