Something Like Love: A Literary Podcast : Recent Episodes
Shelley A. Leedahl
This is an eclectic literary podcast created by multi-genre Canadian writer Shelley A. Leedahl ( https://www.writersunion.ca/member/shelleya-leedahl ) featuring poetry and prose from her 12 books, plus new material and music, with new episodes released each Wednesday. The 10 episodes in Season 1 concerned fictional teenaged characters in edgy situations learning how to navigate life and love in various dimensions, and learning how to love themselves along the way. Some of these short stories were earlier broadcast on CBC Radio Saskatchewan. Each episode included a writing prompt and Leedahl's original music. Season 1 was funded by the Canada Council for the Arts via the Digital Originals Grant Program, and it was professionally produced by Zak Cohen. Season 2 episodes are based on random themes, and include a cover song, poetry or prose, and a guided meditation. Leedahl writes, performs, and produces.
Hello and welcome to Something Like Love … in 2006 I spent six weeks in a cabin in the northern Georgia woods at the Hambidge Retreat Centre, and that part of the US was another world to me. I saw a black rat snake stretch right across the width of a road. I drank sweet tea and ate chitlin and grits. I saw nazi memorabilia at flea markets. And I met Billy Redden, the man who played the part of the banjo playing boy in the movie "Deliverance". Sidenote: I’ve since learned that he wasn’t playing the banjo at all … there was an adult playing it for him in that scene.
In this episode I’ll share the fictional story I wrote while I was in Rabun Gap, Georgia. I called it "Rabun County," and it was published in my short story collection Listen, Honey, published in 2012 by DC Books. Easy to find online, if you fancy getting yourself a copy.
To set the mood, I kick things off with a little blue grass.
Thanks for tuning in! I wish you a Georgia peach kind of Day.
Hello and welcome to Something Like Love. I was born and raised in Saskatchewan, and much of my family still lives in that oft over-looked province – if I had a dollar for all the times people have told me they’ve just “driven through” on the TransCanada, I’d be a wealthy gal.
I spent most of my adolescence in Meadow Lake. I grew up in the forest and in the crystal clear lakes inside the Meadow Lake Provincial Park. As a child, I remember a bear running through the school yard at recess, and the students were stampeded back into the safety of the school. Or is that a false memory? A dream? I’d be interested in hearing from you if you too attended Jubilee School – the round elementary school - and remember the bear at recess too.
In this week’s episode I’m going to bring you along on a road trip through my home province via an essay that’s had a long and varied life. Firstly, it appeared in a long gone but lovely magazine called NeWest Review as “Road Trip: Why I Write About Saskatchewan.” That was way back in 1996.
In 2009 it appeared in a book titled Country Roads: Memoirs from Rural Canada, released by Nimbus Publishing. I included it in my 2014 essay collection, I Wasn’t Always Like This, published by Signature Editions, and here it is again, with music, for you. Shout out to the marvellous Peter Mutafov for channelling Neil Young in this episode ... and to Neil Young himself, for "Harvest Moon".
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Something Like Love. Here we are in Season 3, with travel and exploration as the theme. This week we'll spend some time in Maui. I share my essay "Haleakala Sunrise," from my essay collection "I Wasn't Always Like This," which is available almost everywhere, but you might want to check it out here: https://bookshop.org/books?keywords=leedahl (bookshop.org is a great place to order books)
This week's episode includes a fractured family, a pre-dawn trip up to the Haleakala volcano to see the sunrise, and a bike back down on mountain bikes. There's also barbed wire, and a brief Shellified take on "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."
Thanks for listening, and have a beautiful week.
This week Something Like Love visits, Bali, where I travelled with my son in 2009, and we met an Indonesian tailor named Mowgly, travelled into the countryside on motorbike, and participated in a celebration of the Hindu goddess Sariswati. The short essay I share this week is titled "Once Upon a Time in Bali: Adventures on a Mother/Son Vacation," and it appeared in my essay collection I Wasn't Always Like This (Signature Editions).
I met Santa Monica writer and Pushcart Prize nominee Donna Conrad in an internet cafe in Sanur, and we became quick friends. Years later I travelled to California to help Donna edit her novel. I also edited her delightful children's picture book, How I Sent My Hug Around the World. You can find this gorgeous hardcover - illustrated by Balinese artist Monez Gusmang - here: https://www.amazon.com/How-Sent-Hug-Around-World/dp/0985245719
I hope you'll check this week's episode out, and go easy, Friends.
Hello Friends. I’m Shelley Leedahl, a multi-genre writer in lovely Ladysmith on Vancouver Island, and this is Season 3 of my literary podcast, Something Like Love. I’ve always loved to explore, so I’m feeling the pain during these restrictive, pandemic times and thus have decided to dedicate Season 3 to travel and exploration through poetry, fiction, and essays.
You’re warmly invited to join me each week on international adventures from my past, and I’ll share some Canadian locales too. I also promote other writer’s work and – because I just can’t help myself – I add a dash of music to the mix, too
No passports required, no quarantine necessary. Let’s … just … do … this.
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Today we’re Portugal bound. I was in Europe in 2013, and the extended trip was feasible because I’d arranged a home exchange with a French couple. My then-partner and I flew to Basel, Switzerland, where Chulita and Alain met us and drove us back to their home near Belfort, France.
We had two nights with them, then they flew off to Edmonton while we settled into the Alsace region of France. By god it was glorious in the French countryside. We had a view of the Vosges Mountains, and both Germany and Switzerland were nearby.
We zoomed to Paris on the TGV. We connected with writer friends of mine in Germany’s Black Forest, and we luxuriated in a Baden Baden spa. We visited my sister-in-law and niece in Switzerland, and we popped over to the Czech Republic for some exploring there, too. Highlights included quaint Colmar, France – la petite Venice – and visiting wineries, and running in the French countryside to the next village for morning croissants. I’m terribly fond of Europe, truth be told.
In this episode you’ll hear me tell a story involving a near arrest at Estoril, Portugal, and a wild trip back to a Lisbon Air BnB in the back of a siren-blaring police paddywagon. I also read the essay “What I Learned About Life at the End of the World,” from my essay collection I Wasn’t Always Like This (Signature Editions). I wrote it when based in Salema, on the southern coast, after I was invited on an 8-hour hike – to the end of the world – with a 70-year-old stranger named Sigrun.
I’m also pleased to share the work of Regina, Saskatchewan writer-friend Gerry Hill, who also spent time writing in Portugal. Gerry recently launched his seventh collection of poetry, Crooked at the Far End (Radiant Press), and he graciously sent me a recording of his poem “Love Poem Contest, Second Prize.” Man, he had me at the title alone.
I usually create all the music for this podcast series, but this week I couldn’t resist adding some Fado – hey, the theme’s Portugal, after all. Thanks to Alexandre Bateiras for “Variações Sobre um tema Melancólico,” and Creative Commons for this license:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
Next week we’re going to Bali!
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If you enjoyed this travel essay and wish to read more, please order a copy of I Wasn’t Always Like This online here http://www.signature-editions.com/index.php/books/single_title/i_wasnt_always_like_this , on Amazon, or from your favourite bookstore.
Hello Friends. I’m Shelley Leedahl, a multi-genre writer in lovely Ladysmith on Vancouver Island, and this is Season 3 of my literary podcast, Something Like Love. I’ve always loved to explore, so I’m feeling the pain during these restrictive, pandemic times and thus have decided to dedicate Season 3 to travel and exploration through poetry, fiction, and essays.
You’re warmly invited to join me each week on international adventures from my past, and I’ll share some Canadian locales too. I also promote other writer’s work and – because I just can’t help myself – I add a dash of music to the mix, too
No passports required, no quarantine necessary. Let’s … just … do … this.
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Sometimes you write something and it sits in your drawer for years. Decades. That’s been the case for the six postcard stories I'm sharing in my podcast, Something Like Love, today. Each brief story is set in Mérida, on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.
I was in this colonial city working with nine other Canadians and ten Mexicans – equal parts writers and photographers – for a month-long exchange in 2002. A year later the Mexican artists came Canada way … we spent six weeks together on our individual projects - and collaborations - at the Banff Centre.
I hold these two experiences close to my heart, not only for the art that was made through them, but also because of the enduring connections they spawned. Lifetime friendships.
Mérida's known for its rich Mayan history and culture. We arrived just after Hurricane Isidore had devastated the area; the graceful city I'd toured many times online was not the city I arrived in, yet as I piled into a taxi with a few other Canadians, I had the distinct sense that for for the first time in my thirty-nine years, I was home. I got a visceral sense of the city’s passionate heartbeat: people danced in the streets. Hell, I danced in the streets.
I was struck by the city’s unique, S-shaped benches, called confidentes, silla tu y yo, or de los enamorados – for those in love. These binary benches are connected by their handles on opposite sides, so when you sit down you're facing the other person.
A legend exists about a father whose daughter was being courted by a young man in the village. As a condition of their courthship, the jealous father asked the couple to venture only as far as the park benches. They accepted, but the father then realized that the traditional park bench gave them plenty of opportunity to be physically close, so he decided to crate the silla tu y yo, which allowed them to speak each other and look into each other’s eyes while maintaining a discrete distance.
I was amazed at how openly passionate couples - of all ages - were on these confidentes and on regular park benches throughout the city. Hugging, kissing, stroking … well, you get the picture. As a rule, you don’t see this in Canada.
I teamed up with renowned Mexican photographer Gerardo Montiel Klint for a project. Gerardo photographed six of these amorous couples, and I learned first names and occupations. From this, I constructed a fictional story for each of them. All these years later, I'm finally sharing those very short stories and the people that inspired them.
In this week's episode I'm delighted to also include a Mérida poem by my dear friend and fellow Canada-Mexico participant, Victoria's Maleea Acker. Maleea's poem, "Calles de Mérida a las Tres de la Mañana," is from her remarkable book The Reflecting Pool, published by Pedlar Press. Maleea has a new poetry collection forthcoming in 2022, and I very much look forward to reading it.
I normally create all the music for my podcast, but this week I used salsa from creative commons … the song is "Montuno: Evening Mood "by Dee Yan-Key from Tribe of Noise . Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: http://creativecommons.
Hello Friends. I’m Shelley Leedahl, a multi-genre writer in lovely Ladysmith on Vancouver Island, and this is Season 3 of my literary podcast, Something Like Love.
I’ve always loved to explore, so I’m feeling the pain during these restrictive, pandemic times, and thus have decided to dedicate Season 3 to travel and exploration through poetry, fiction, and essays.
You’re warmly invited to join me each week on international adventures from my past, and I’ll share some Canadian locales, too. I also promote other writers' work and – because I just can’t help myself – I add a dash of music to the mix, too
No passports required, no quarantine necessary. You don’t even need to buckle in. Let’s … just … do … this.
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My work often centres around a strong sense of place, and I’ve done much of my writing at retreats in Canada, the US, Mexico, and Europe. Back in the day, when I lived two provinces to the east, I sometimes used my parents’ former home at Manitou Beach, Saskatchewan, as a writing retreat, and it’s there that I wrote the short story "The Land of Healing Waters."
It’s a fictional story set at the popular mineral spa in that iconic prairie community, and it’s the final story in my collection Orchestra of the Lost Steps, published by Thistledown Press. In this episode I introduce you to quiet, widowed Nona, and her new friend, effervescent Chris.
My parents now live in Watrous, a few miles down the highway from Manitou Beach. I’ve dedicated this episode to them, and I kick it off with "The Tennessee Waltz ".
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This show is written, read and produced by me, Shelley Leedahl, but I occasionally have a little help. Huge thanks to Peter Mutafov for his lovely contribution with the violin this week, and equally large thanks to Jeanne Marie de Moissac from Biggar, SK, who reads her prairie-set poem, "A Mixing," from her book Slow Curve.
If you've enjoyed this show, please share it with someone, and thank you, from all the corners of my heart, for listening.
Hello Friends. I’m Shelley Leedahl, a multi-genre writer in lovely Ladysmith on Vancouver Island, and this is Season 3 of my literary podcast, Something Like Love. I’ve always loved to explore, so I’m feeling the pain during these restrictive, pandemic times and thus have decided to dedicate Season 3 to travel and exploration through poetry, fiction, and essays.
You’re warmly invited to join me each week on international adventures from my past, and I’ll share some Canadian locales too. I also promote other writer’s work and – because I just can’t help myself – I add a dash of music to the mix, too
No passports required, no quarantine necessary. You don’t even need to buckle in. Let’s just put our walkin' boots on, and do this.
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If you’ve tuned in on St. Patrick’s Day, the day this episode first aired, good on ya. I’ve got a wee bit of the Irish in me. My great great great grandfather on my mom’s side – John Faris – was born in County Cavan, Ireland, in 1787
Now I’ve never been to that part of the country, but I did spend a week writing at a self-made retreat at a monastery south of Dublin, and I befriended a nun who took me to a pub … of course we raised a glass of Guiness together. (Sidenote: I’m more of a pale lager gal, I don’t even like Guiness, but when in Ireland … )
I bought a green hoody in Dublin, with “Ireland” blazened across it in white lettering. I wear it one day a year – St. Patrick’s Day. And I wear it proudly.
What I remember most about Ireland is wishing I had someone there with me to experience it. I’m impressed by those who travel alone around the world – good on them – but I’ve done enough solo travel to know it’s not my jam.
One of the best things about my Irish experience was meeting a fellow poet, Pádraig J. Daly, an Augustinian priest at the monastery, and a fine scribe. His poetry collections include, Out of Silence, The Voice of the Hare, The Last Dreamers, The Other Sea, Clinging to the Myth, Afterlife, and God in Winter. Pádraig also translates from both the Irish language and Italian. In this episode I share his reading of his moving poem "Time of Peace," from his book Afterlife, which first aired on this podcast: https://www.podcasts.ie/featured-writers/featured-poets/padraig-j-daly/
I also read five poems I wrote in Ireland, which appeared in my book The House of the Easily Amused.Finally, what's St. Patrick's Day without an Irish proverb? "Everything will be alright in the end … if it’s not alright, it’s not the end. "
Happy St. Patrick’s Day, Friends. Go easy.
Hello to you, and I hope this finds you well. Welcome to Season 2, Episode 10 of Something Like Love. My theme this week is Boy, and I’m reaching far back into the library to bring you a story from my short fiction collection, Orchestra of the Lost Steps. This book took me 10 years to write – well, I had a lot of other things on the go back then, like being a mom, getting a university degree, and working at part-time jobs.
Orchestra of the Lost Steps was published by Thistledown Press in 2004 and it’s been out of print for many years now, but of all my books, it’s one of the ones I’m proudest of. The story I’ll be reading is called "Baby, Please Don’t Go," and the music I've included is my take "The House of the Rising Sun."
Folks, I feeling like I’ve been playing catch-up for a little while now, so I’m going to take a six week-sabbatical from this podcast and nourish my body and spirit with loads of hiking, reading, running, and yoga - and perhaps I’ll even get into my sea kayak . I’ll be back here on St. Patrick’s Day to share something fresh - and possibly “green” - with you. I’ll be changing the format of the show for Season 3 as well. If you want to reach out with any ideas for this podcast, I'm all ears at shelleyaleedahl@gmail.com.
To help you get refreshed and relaxed, I've added a Metta meditation this week. Metta meditation is also called Loving Kindness Meditation. It’s the practice of directing well wishes toward others by reciting specific words and phrases meant to evoke warm-hearted feelings. (This is also commonly found in Mindfulness and Vipassana meditation.)
Metta Mediation is typically practiced while sitting in a comfortable, relaxed position. I find that soft lighting helps. Perhaps light and focus on a candle. After a few deep breaths, you repeat the following words slowly and steadily. “May I be happy. May I be well. May I be safe. May I be peaceful and at ease.”
After a period of directing this loving kindness toward yourself, try to picture a family member or friend and repeat the mantra again, this time replacing “I” with “you.”
As you continue the meditation, you can add others in your life ... friends, family members, colleagues. Perhaps even a stranger you saw on your errands today, someone who looked like he or she could use some kindness. And here’s how this also works … you can even visualize a person you are currently having difficulty with. This kind of mental massaging may do you both wonders. When you’ve repeated the mantra naming yourself, then whomever else you’re focusing on, end the meditation with the universal mantra: “May all beings everywhere be happy.”
I wish you peace and happiness. Be well, Friends.
THIS EPISODE CONTAINS BIG NEWS!
I'm not going to give that news away here and now, but let's just say that 2020 ended on an extremely high note for this writer ... champagne was definitely poured and enjoyed.
Hello, and welcome to Episode 9 of Something Like Love. This short episode features "Places" as its theme. You'll hear six poems - some new, some from my books; a song from "The Sound of Music" (that's popular the world-over, and was a big hit when I was performing in nursing homes on Vancouver Island, pre-Covid); and in my meditation this week I encourage you to take a soothing bath.
This show will be released on January 20th, 2021, and unless you've been living beneath a boulder, you know that President-elect Joe Biden is to be inaugurated at noon on January 20th, becoming the 46th president of the United States.
I'm thinking of you, Listener, whomever you are, wherever you are, and I am thinking of the citizens of the United States of America .... bless our homelands, forever.
Well isn't this new year just clipping along ... here we are already halfway through January. I have to tell you that sometimes it's a struggle to get a weekly podcast ready. I don't know if it was the grim weather, or my own low energy, but I had a devil of a time getting music together for this episode. I really wanted to sing "A Horse With No Name," but I'll be darned if I could manage it, so I scrapped my voice on it, used the guitar portion only near the end of the episode, and did a version of Neil Young's "After the Goldrush" instead. I love the poetry in this piece, and sometimes with music it's hard to actually hear the lyrics clearly, so I spoke the song, mostly. Got to love Neil Young.
My theme for this episode is Gold, Silver, Yellow. I've chosen a poem called "Saskatchewan House" from my poetry manuscript, GO, for the Gold portion; silver is represented by a character - Randolph Silver - in a short story called "Hospice;" and another poem , "Ladysmith: Gratitude 3" (also from GO), delivers the Yellow.
In the meditation portion I talk about a walking meditation you can easily do in the comfort of your own home or yard.
I hope you're having a super 2021 thus far. If you like what you hear on this podcast, please share it with a friend. The show's completely homegrown: I do the music, I wrote the poetry and prose, and I'm trying my best to produce these episodes, too.
The artwork is by my photographer friend Philip Pavliger - he's a pro.
Welcome to the 7th episode of Season 2, in which Joni Mitchell's been the inspiration for my cover song, and she appears in my prose and poetry. In this pint-sized episode I share an essay I wrote decades ago for the Saskatoon StarPhoenix ... it's an homage to simple, childhood days, when I'd "slice off a stalk of rhubarb, fill a bowl with sugar and dip through an August afternoon," and at the lake I'd "race my siblings to the buoys, do back flips off the dock."
The single poem in this episode is called "Sun Drunk," and it appears in my most recent poetry collection, Wretched Beast (Buschek Books). I wrote it at Stegner House in Eastend, Saskatchewan, quite a few moons ago. In that town I met a man who spoke eight languages and wore broken-down shoes.
All the music and all the mistakes are mine, but if you can see past them, I hope you'll find that this episode delivers a kind of cosy cave where you're warmly welcomed to enter for 15 minutes, and know that the goodness you are wished is genuine.
Hey, here we are on the edge of a new year, and I say bring it on!
This week's episode of Something Like Love is all about .... well, Love! I start with a cover of Sarah MacLachlan's "Ice Cream," continue with five poems - four from my books, plus one new one - and end with a meditation ... I've extracted a passage from an essay in a book I recently reviewed: A Book of Ecological Virtues: Living Well in the Anthropocene, edited by Heesoon Bai, David Chang, and Charles Scott, University of Regina Press. The essay is "Worthy of this Mountain," by David Chang, and in it Chang discusses the import of "[seeking] guidance from the earth itself."
I'm responsible for all the music and all the mistakes.
Wishing you a stellar 2021, and stellar examples and experiences of love, every time you turn around. xo
Welcome to Season 2, Episode 5 of Something Like Love. And hey, Merry Christmas, too!
Like many Canadians of a certain age, the soundtrack to a few decades of my life has been the music of the Tragically Hip. I saw them perform several times, and used a line from their song “We’ll Go Too” (from the album "Fully Completely") as an epigraph to my long-ago-published novel, Tell Me Everything.
This is that line: “Museum’s locked and it’s long since past closing, you cannot know, you cannot not know what you’re knowing.” I wrote to the band’s manager for permission to use the line, and she granted it. I paid a nominal $50 fee, and was asked to send each member of the band a copy of the book, which of course I did. The manager surprised and delighted me when she told me that when the Hip came to perform in Saskatoon - where I was living at the time - that year, I was invited backstage and meet the band.
I consulted Wikipedia to get some information about one of the Hip’s best-loved songs, "Bobcaygeon," which I used to plan this week’s episode of my podcast.
"The song is named after Bobcaygeon, Ontario, a town about 160 km northeast of Toronto. The song's narrator works in the city as a police officer, a job he finds stressful and sometimes ponders quitting, but [he] unwinds from the stress and restores his spirit by spending his weekends with a loved one in the rural idyll of Bobcaygeon, where he sees 'the constellations/reveal themselves one star at a time' in contrast to the city's 'dull and hypothetical' skies that are 'falling one cloud at a time'.
In live performances, Tragically Hip singer Gord Downie (RIP) typically explained 'Bobcaygeon' as a 'cop love song,' though the sex and identity of the narrator's beloved change from performance to performance. According to Downie, the song was not specifically written about the town itself, but rather any small town would have worked for the theme and he settled on 'Bobcaygeon' primarily because it was the only place name he could find that came close to rhyming with 'constellation.'" The song is also about racism and anti-semitism. It’s a powerful and emotional song about serious things.
The cover band "The Tragically Hits" put out a call for Canadians to come together to sing “Bobcaygeon” at 6 p.m. on Sunday, April 5th, 2020. Richard Kyle, a Bobcaygeon resident and member of the cover band asked people around Canada to “Sing Bobcaygeon From Your Front Porch” asa show of solidarity with the town after more than two dozen residents of its Pinecrest Nursing home died of COVID-19 in the spring of 2020. I didn’t play it on my porch, but I did play it for the first time on my guitar this spring.
The word "morning" appears several times in the song … and Morning is my theme this week.
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Are you a morning person? I’ve certainly become one as I get older. I start almost every day with a morning walk, hike or run in Ladysmith, where I am surrounded by the woods, waterfalls, and wild things. I moved here in 2014, and I am in love with this community.
This week I’m sharing an essay from a manuscript called "Wet and Slippery and Breathing." This essay, titled "Ladysmith," was written one spring, on a golden morning …
At the end of this podcast you'll also find a very brief meditation idea. Hey, it's late December. Take a little time for yourself. xo
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If you enjoyed this podcast, please tell a friend. And go well, wherever you are.
Hello Friends, and welcome to the 4th Episode in Season 2 of my literary podcast, Something Like Love. As usual, I've picked a theme - this week it's "mother" - and I cover a song, share some writing, and end with a meditation of some sort. It's all a bit random, and I'm no professional musican, but I like the idea of mixing it up and connecting with y'all.
The song I've chosen is that Beatles' classic "Let It Be," and - confession - I had to do dozens of takes before I got something halfway presentable. I wanted to do a really pared down version and chose to play it on my ukulele, but I just couldn't hit the high note in the chorus. Eventually I swapped out the uke for my guitar, changed the chords to something that fits my voice a little better, and, well, it'll do. Hope you'll sing along!
My story this week is, "Listen, Honey," which is the title story from my 2012 short story collection of the same name. The book Listen, Honey was published by DC Books, and if you like the story and want to check out more, you can get a copy online wherever you order books, or get it directly from the publisher, right here: http://www.dcbooks.ca/Listen%20Honey.html
Have a blissful week, Dears. I'll be thinking about you.
Photo credit: Philip Pavliger
Hello Friends, I’m Shelley Leedahl, a writer in lovely Ladysmith on Vancouver Island, and this is my literary podcast, Something Like Love. The ten shows in Season 2 will centre around random weekly themes, and I’ll release a new episode each Wednesday.
You’re going to hear a “Shellified” cover song, a selection of prose or poems – either from my already-published books or new work – and a meditation to soothe and inspire as we stumble together through these unprecedented times. Hang in there, folks. We’ve got this.
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We’ve had a particularly windy fall here on Vancouver Island, and as I’ve just come in from a long walk through the woods and witnessed the wind’s via snapped trees and branch-littered trails, it seems apropos that it’s Wind’s turn to be my theme. I’ll read a new-ish short story, titled "Wind," and share a few poems that include the wind. And speaking of wind, I saw a tornado in Saskatchewan once … but that’s a story for another day.
As for my cover song, well, I’m guessing you all know "Blowin’ in the Wind" ... please sing along!
I’ve also got a few poems in my pocket. The first, "Windy Day at the Beach, July 2000," appeared in my collection Talking Down the Northern Lights. A few phrases from this poem also appeared in a song I contributed to, "Shots of Bacardi," by the Vancouver/San Francisco-based indie band, Maltavar. The musicians did an amazing job with the song … you can listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2Y2UF9PhSI
The other poems are newer and have not yet been published as part of a collection, but the poem’s "Deluge" and "Alfama" were shortlisted for Arc Magazine’s Poem of the Year Contest. (Alfama is the Moorish area of Lisbon … I was in Portugal in 2013, and ended up speeding down the highway in the back of a police paddy wagon … but that’s a story for another day, too. )
The long-titled "Song for the Homeless as We Drive to Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse in a Red Convertible on a Thursday Night in June" appeared in an educational anthology, Modern Morsels, Selections of Short Fiction and Poetry, published by McGraw-Hill Ryerson. I wrote it, "Deluge," and the final poem, "Let Us," when I lived in Edmonton.
Re: the short meditation in this episode, the music beneath it is not my own, it’s called "Weightless," and it’s by the British ambient band Marconi Union. An American study deemed it “the world’s most relaxing song,” and in the study surgical patients listened to the song before their operations … it was a sedative. Marconi Union wrote the band in 2012 specifically to reduce anxiety, blood pressure and heart rate. Cool, eh? I like to play it when I take the time for a long, relaxing bath.
Thank you for listening. If you enjoy what I'm doing here, please share my podcast with a friend. Go well, Lovelies.
Hello Friends, I’m Shelley Leedahl, a writer in lovely Ladysmith on Vancouver Island, and this is my literary podcast, Something Like Love. The ten shows in Season 2 will centre around random weekly themes, and I’ll release a new episode each Wednesday.
You’re going to hear a “Shellified” cover song, a selection of prose or poems – either from my already-published books or new work – and a meditation to soothe and inspire as we stumble together through these unprecedented times. Hang in there, folks. We’ve got this.
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The theme this week is "Eyes," and because I'm sorta/kinda obsessed with Natalie Merchant, I challenged myself to cover her sublime song "Carnival". (Damn, that was hard.)
You'll also hear seven poems - each with the word "eyes" somewhere in the text - from my four poetry collections. The poems are:
- "Pedro Has A Good Day," from A Few Words For January (Thistledown Press, 1990, 1997), this poem was written after my first ever international travel experience ... it was 1987, and the country was the Dominican Republic).
-From Talking Down the Northern Lights (Thistledown Press, 2001, 2002), I chose "Rendezvous at the Wayside Inn" (a few lines of which were re-used for the indie band Maltavar's song "Shots of Bacardi).
-"With Frost Laced on the Windows, There Is No Seeing Out" and "Snow Day" were both written at my former writing retreat house in Middle Lake, SK. " Revelations" was written in a Catholic Monastery just south of Dublin, Ireland, where I went on a solo retreat. These three poems appeared in my collection The House of the Easily Amused (Oolichan Books, 2008).
-"Photograph" and "For You" are also Saskatchewan-based poems, and they appeared in Wretched Beast (Buschek Books, 2012). I still have a few copies of this now out-of-print book kicking around, and would be stoked to sign and mail you one ... $15 Canadian per copy, plus postage and handling. I'm easy to find via The Writers Union of Canada website.
I end this episode with a guided meditation. It's a rest for your eyes, and an invitation to felt held, cared for, loved. To feel like you're in a bowl of light. If I have my way, you are.
Thank you for listening. Go well.
Hello, Friends. Welcome to my literary podcast Something Like Love, Season 2, Episode 1. I’m Shelley Leedahl in lovely Ladysmith on Vancouver Island, and this is my literary podcast. The 10 shows in Season 2 will feature random weekly themes, and I’ll release a new episode each Wednesday.
I'm a professional multi-genre writer with several published books. I'm also an amateur musician. (Pre-Covid, I visited the Oyster Harbour Seniors' Community in Ladysmith and the Chemainus Health Care Centre each week to play guitar, piano and sing for seniors. I sing for and with others for the sheer joy of it, not because I'm any great shakes in the music department. )
In Season 2 of Something Like Love you’re going to hear a “Shellified” cover song, a selection of prose or poems – either from my already-published books or new work – and a meditation to soothe and inspire as we stumble together through these unprecedented times. Text, music, and production are on me. Cover art, "Social Bubble," is by Taylor Leedahl.
The theme for Season 2, Episode 1 is the moon. The cover song is "Fly Me to the Moon;" I read my poetic moon-themed story The Moon Watched It All (Red Deer Press, beautifully illustrated by Toronto artist Aino Anto), and a guided meditation follows.
If you like the story and wish to purchase a copy of the hardcover book, there are many ways to do that. For a signed copy, you can email me at shelleyaleedahl@gmail.com. Or you can order it through your favourite bookstore, or easily find it online, ie: here:
https://www.reddeerpress.com/Detail/0889955379
Thanks for hanging out with me!
Historic events. JFK’s assassination in 1963. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon in 1969. The end of the Vietnam war, and the birth of the first test tube baby, in the 1970s. The murder of John Lennon in 1980. The nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in 1986. Princess Diana’s tragic accident in 1997. A global pandemic in 2020.
Which time-stopping historic events do you recall? Can you complete the phrase : “I remember where I was when … ”
I remember precisely where I was on the morning of September 11th, 2001. I heard of the first disaster, the crash of American Airlines Flight 11 into the north face of the North Tower of the World Trade Centre, on CBC Radio as I was still in bed. Sixteen minutes later, United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower, and I bolted downstairs to turn on the small TV above the fridge. I stood there for the next twelve hours.
We’re at Episode 10 of Something Like Love, the finale of this suite of stories featuring teen characters. The story you’re about to hear aired twice on CBC Radio Saskatchewan to commemorate 9/11. The text and music are on me, Zak Cohen produced, and my lovely daughter, Taylor Leedahl, provided the cover art for Season One of Something Like Love.
I'll be premiering Season Two of Something Like Love next Wednesday. It'll have a wider focus - each episode will feature a theme (the moon is first up). There'll be a cover song (Shellified, of course), poetry or prose (either from previously published books or new work), and a meditation. We're all stumbling through these unprecedented times together, eh, but we've got this. Thank you to all who listened to the first season. I hope you'll stick with me - or join me for the first time - next week. Go well.
I've always enjoyed the stories and movies where it's left up to the reader or audience to decide what's really going in. (I'm thinking right now about "The Blair Witch Project.")
In my short story “Jayne’s Room,” a babysitter learns that there’s something truly creepy about her highly unchildlike charge. And why does young Jayne keep using the pronoun “we” to refer to herself? Could be, there’s something supernatural going on ….
As ever, there's a writing prompt after the story.
Text and music are by me, Shelley A. Leedahl, and Zak Cohen produced. Cover art, "Musca domestica," is by Taylor Leedahl. I'm eminently grateful for funding assistance from the Canada Council for the Arts via the Digital Originals Grant Program.
Thank you for listening! If you like what you hear, please consider subscribing to my podcast. And always, take good care, Friends.
Sometimes – in fact, rather often – my stories come out of nowhere, but I want to share a secret with you … in the story you’re about to hear, Can You Double Dutch?, I lifted one scene from my own life. I took a single, lived experience and built a fictional story around it … I’ll tell you which scene resulted at the end of the story.
Like other characters in this series of ten stories featuring teens, young Haley in this episode has had to grow up early. Haley's a model with a TransAtlantic career, and doing something as simple as taking a walk in her own neighbourhood is foreign and slightly surreal. Of course, something unexpected happens ....
As ever, there's a writing prompt after the story.
Text and music are by me, Shelley A. Leedahl, and Zak Cohen produced. Cover art, "Musca domestica," is by Taylor Leedahl. I'm eminently grateful for funding assistance from the Canada Council for the Arts via the Digital Originals Grant Program.
Thank you for listening! If you like what you hear, please consider subscribing to my podcast. And always, take good care, Friends.
Before I was old enough to have a social insurance number, I earned money like many young people did and do – by babysitting. I have fond memories of babysitting for a number of different families in my hometown of Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan, and likewise, my own children also earned their adolescent spending money via regular babysitting jobs in Saskatoon. This next story concerns a young girl who took on a babysitting job that did not turn out well. The setting’s a police station interview room. The main character is Jade, and the story’s called Thursday Nights and Saturday Afternoons.
As ever, there's a writing prompt after the story.
Text and music are by me, Shelley A. Leedahl, and Zak Cohen produced. Cover art, "Musca domestica," is by Taylor Leedahl. I'm eminently grateful for funding assistance from the Canada Council for the Arts via the Digital Originals Grant Program.
Thank you for listening! If you like what you hear, please consider subscribing to my podcast. And always, take good care, Friends.
I’ve lived in various communities in all three western provinces, including Saskatoon, Calgary, Medicine Hat, Edmonton, and Sechelt, but I grew up in four small Saskatchewan towns – Kyle, Turtleford, Wilkie and Meadow Lake – and there were definitely “characters” in each of them.
Sometimes the seed of a story begins with one or two characters – major or minor – and the plot of the story seemingly invents itself. What I like best about writing is when the metaphorical “pen” takes off as if on its own, and I’m just the woman holding it.
In Episode 6 of Something Like Love, I'm sticking with that smalltown vibe. You're about to meet Shelayne, who fears she fell for Roddy because he didn’t have a mother. It’s a pitying kind of love, and like an old sweater in your closet, it may be unravelling soon …
As ever, there's a writing prompt after the story.
Text and music are by me, Shelley A. Leedahl, and Zak Cohen produced. Cover art, "Musca domestica," is by Taylor Leedahl. I'm eminently grateful for funding assistance from the Canada Council for the Arts via the Digital Originals Grant Program.
Thank you for listening! If you like what you hear, please consider subscribing to this podcast. And always, take good care.
I clearly remember my last day of high school at Carpenter High in Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan. It was a gorgeous spring day, parties were being planned, and someone was blasting Alice Cooper’s iconic “School’s Out” from a TransAm.
I knew I was going to study Journalism Arts at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in Calgary come September, and over the summer I’d be working full-time at the Co-op Grocery Store. Any spare time would be spent on, in, or beside one of the clear, cold lakes in the Meadow Lake Provincial Park.
That summer after high school and before the wide open playing field that’s the rest of your life is a unique season. Do you remember yours? Maybe it still awaits you.
In Episode 5 of Something Like Love I've again chosen a male narrator and a small town setting. The story’s called “Smoke From Our Cigarettes”.
As ever, there's a writing prompt after the story.
Text and music are by me, Shelley A. Leedahl, and Zak Cohen produced. Cover art, "Musca domestica," is by Taylor Leedahl. I'm eminently grateful for funding assistance from the Canada Council for the Arts via the Digital Originals Grant Program.
Thank you for listening! If you like what you hear, please consider subscribing to my podcast. And always, take good care, Friends.
In this episode you'll meet a young woman who believes herself to be a good person. She's been targeted by a group of popular girls at her high school, so she knows a thing or two about bullying. Will she be empathetic when she witnesses an adult being harrassed at the beach? Are you the kind of person who would step in?
This story, “The Kind of Person I Am," was previously broadcast on CBC Radio Saskatchewan under the title "Holiday". As ever, there's a writing prompt after the story.
Text and music are by me, Shelley A. Leedahl, and Zak Cohen produced. Cover art, "Musca Domestica," is by Taylor Leedahl. I'm eminently grateful for funding assistance from the Canada Council for the Arts via the Digital Originals Grant Program.
Thank you for listening! If you like what you hear, please consider subscribing to my podcast. And always, take good care, Friends.
I grew up on Stephen King novels, and the books by other popular horror writers. To be scared was – and still is – kind of a thrill. Like many adolescents, my friends and I went through a period of fascination with the occult … ouija boards, games like “Light as A Feather, Stiff As a Board.”
In this episode you’ll meet a group of teens in the small fictional town of Jackfish, SK. It’s a summer night, and one of the crew dares Buck to walk around a church three times at midnight, holding the devil card, the Ace of Spades …
As ever, there's a writing prompt after the story.
Text and music are by me, Shelley A. Leedahl, and Zak Cohen produced. Cover art, "Musca Domestica," is by Taylor Leedahl. I'm eminently grateful for funding assistance from the Canada Council for the Arts via the Digital Originals Grant Program.
Thank you for listening! If you like what you hear, please consider subscribing to my podcast. And always, take good care, Friends.
In the title story of the Something Like Love series you're going to meet Dylan. He's only fourteen but he’s an old soul ... and more than a tad neurotic. His dad’s a doctor with high expectations for his kid. School's just about to start again. Dylan’s got one friend, Jessica. Jess has a cool tat, low income parents, and some serious cojones ...
As ever, there's a writing prompt after the story.
Text and music are by me, Shelley A. Leedahl, and Zak Cohen produced. Cover Art, "Musca Domestica," is by Taylor Leedahl. I'm eminently grateful for funding assistance from the Canada Council for the Arts via the Digital Originals Grant Program.
Thank you for listening! If you like what you hear, please consider subscribing to my podcast. And always, take good care, Friends.
In this first Something Like Love podcast you'll meet independent Larissa, who’s wild about her bike; classic rock and roll; and her dog, named after Eddie Van Halen. The young protagonist is not at all keen when her 40-year-old mother gets pregnant, and when the baby comes home, well, it's unthinkable, really, and you’ll learn more soon …
There's a writing prompt after the story, and I hope you're inspired to pick up your own pen.
Text and music are by me, Shelley A. Leedahl, and Zak Cohen produced. Cover art, "Musca domestica," is by Taylor Leedahl. I'm eminently grateful for funding assistance from the Canada Council for the Arts via the Digital Originals Grant Program.
Thank you for listening! If you like what you hear, please consider subscribing to my podcast. And always, take good care, Friends.