The Creation Story: Recent Episodes
Jenny Goransson
A (non-religious) podcast that explores the ways that creativity, motherhood, and vulnerability inform one another, with input from writing scholars, and stories from four generations of women from the same family.
Jenny discusses parenting in the era of COVID-19. As any parent of young children knows, quarantine with kids means exhaustion, boredom, and unprecedented uncertainty. This episode discusses the ways that she and her five-year-old daughter Ella are coping, collaboratively. We’ll also hear from Ella herself about what it means to be a kid right now. Lots of pretend and improvisation – sometimes through song. Jenny weaves in connections to community writing projects, writing pedagogy that focuses on the present moment, feminist rhetorical theory, and the idea of creative play.
This episode is dedicated to Ella Goransson Sewell.
Show Notes are linked here.
Welcome to episode 1 of The Creation Story.
In this episode, I share the experience of having one of my favorite musicians write a song for me as "Musical Medicine" during a time when I was struggling with Postpartum Depression four years ago (hence the title Post-postpartum) . I will share my embodied story of that night, which pulled unanticipated allies out of the woodwork and created a community out of a group of strangers.
There will be vulnerability, music, and two special guests: songwriter David Wilcox and my husband Glenn Sewell. We’ll hear from David himself about his approach to writing an improvised song on the spot while an entire audience watches. Glenn shares his experience as an audience member that night.
I will relate the experiences of that night to the scholarly concepts of rhetorical empathy, mindfulness, and embodiment. I’ll consider the role of the physical body in the composition process, and I’ll share the ways that disability – in this case, a mental illness – plays out in public spaces, like a folk music concert.
Link to Show Notes here.