Courageous Wordsmith

Lynn Trotta is a nature-based mentor and certified life-coach who guides empaths and sensitive souls out of the overwhelm of distraction culture and into peace and belonging, through a rooted and sacred relationship with nature.

Since 2005 she’s been helping people fall madly in love with the wild… both inside and out, by sharing easy-to-follow connection practices fostering mindfulness, purpose, and greater intuition.

Facebook Group

https://www.facebook.com/groups/611928405943312

Website

www.lynntrotta.com

Rough Magic Performance Company is a professional theater company focused on supporting women artists, audiences, and stories; we strive to embrace the complexities and diversity of women’s experiences from classics to contemporary work while promoting artistic excellence and community engagement. Co-Artistic Directors Alayne Hopkins and Catherine Justice founded Rough Magic to empower women artists to take ownership of the process of creating and telling the stories they perform. Their collaborations include a podcast and live theater productions in the Twin Cities.

https://www.roughmagicperformance.org

Buy tickets for Norma Jeane Baker of Troy, July 1-18 in Minneapolis

The Parker Project & The Macbeth Project Podcasts

https://www.instagram.com/roughmagicperformance/

https://m.facebook.com/roughmagicperformance

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Amy's e-Book, Shiny Objects 101: Eleven key tools to access muses, face Inner Trolls & Find Powerful Stories so that you can write & publish books your audience (& you) will love

Roseanne Cheng is an author, writing coach, ghostwriter, and book marketing consultant. She's the co-founder of Evergreen Authors, an online school teaching creatives how to get their work out into the world.

www.evergreenauthors.com

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Amy's e-Book, Shiny Objects 101: Eleven key tools to access muses, face Inner Trolls & Find Powerful Stories so that you can write & publish books your audience (& you) will love

Amy's FREE Narrative Masterclass on May 18, 2021

Formerly a Teach for America teacher and IBM tech writer, Kiki Kelley went on to become Google's first editor ever, rose to senior editor, and helped the company IPO. Kiki's surprise miracle daughter, Madeleine, has seen her mother start a charitable foundation, study Jungian psychoanalysis, and make history as USA Wrestling's first woman team leader for Men's Greco-Roman wrestling. This led to Kiki being the first woman to enter any sports arena in Iran since 1979. Following interviews for media outlets such as the BBC, Kiki was featured at the Olympics museum in Lausanne, Switzerland, and in The Inspirational Woman Project, a book by Bri Seeley. After the Rio Olympics, Kiki was named an ambassador for USA Wrestling, spending time in refugee camps. She now podcasts with Amy Hallberg in her own Tales for a Bucket List Champ. Next item on the list: Kiki will finish her work as team leader for Women's Freestyle wrestling, culminating in the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Kiki's Podcast: Tales from a Bucket List Champ

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Amy's e-Book, Shiny Objects 101: Eleven key tools to access muses, face Inner Trolls & Find Powerful Stories so that you can write & publish books your audience (& you) will love

Amy's FREE Narrative Masterclass on May 18, 2021

Ray DePaola is Owner, Creator & Wizard of Sunrise Journeys Life Coaching | Master Wayfinder & Coach | Co-conspirator | Life Guide | SpiritWalker | DreamCatcher | Experimenting in living a life of purpose, sustained through play, satisfaction, and joy

www.sunrisejourneys.com

https://www.facebook.com/SunriseJourneysLifeCoaching

https://www.instagram.com/sunrisejourneys/

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Amy's Shiny Objects 101—Eleven key tools to access muses, face Inner Trolls & Find Powerful Stories so that you can write & publish books your audience (& you) will love

Rebecca Tolin is a mind-body coach who helps people heal from chronic fatigue, pain, headaches, anxiety and other stress-related symptoms. Rebecca recovered from 13-years of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome through the groundbreaking work of Dr. John Sarno, who coined the term TMS, and other pioneers in mind-body healing. Her classes blend neuroscience, somatic and emotional work, affirmations and behavioral changes. Rebecca loves helping others recover their wellbeing and spirit. Her next course How We Heal Chronic Pain & Fatigue begins May 4, 2021. You can learn more here:

https://www.rebeccatolin.com/how-we-heal

https://www.rebeccatolin.com

https://www.facebook.com/rebecca.tolin/

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Amy's Shiny Objects 101—Eleven key tools to access muses, face Inner Trolls & Find Powerful Stories so that you can write & publish books your audience (& you) will love

Stephanie L Walton has come to understand that success is failure reengineered. In her own life, she has seem massive failures reengineered into glorious successes.

Stephanie has been a leader in several Fortune 500 companies over the last 20 years. Her commitment to courageous leadership, self-awareness, and vulnerability, has successfully allowed her to coach business owners and leaders for nearly a decade. Her motivation is something she learned in her faith, "you make your dreams come true, when you help others achieve theirs." Stephanie is the author of Succeeding with Passion.

Stephanie's Website: https://succeedingwithpassion.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/succeedingwithpassion/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thestephwalton/

From Amy: In the credits, I mentioned Courageous Wordsmith Collective. If you believe you have a book in you, and you want to play with writing, come join us for compassionate witness and creative cross-pollination. We're not for everyone who wants to write a book. We're unapologetically feminist. We're LGBTQ affirming. We're anti-racist and Black Lives Matter. We believe in humanity + spirit + earth. This is sanctuary space for writers. But if you're listening to this podcast, you already knew that.

https://write.courageouswordsmith.com

From Amy:

This is a tender and important topic for me. As a white woman, I'm afraid of getting it wrong. At the same time I'm so proud of this episode.

More importantly, I thank Stephanie Walton for engaging in this exchange. There's something so damaging when white culture denies the truths of Black people, and has for generations.

And yet, here we are.

I strongly suspect—and Stephanie affirms—I've been missing some good stuff at the intersections of our two cultures by not digging deeper. So I'm educating myself—and some of the things we white people think we need to worry about? Stephanie says let it go. Some of the things I thought Black people knew? Stephanie didn't. I always learn from our talks.

Stephanie is a gracious, astute, Black woman who tells it like it is, and I'm grateful to her, both for her friendship and for meeting me here to explore.

About Stephanie:

Stephanie L Walton has come to understand that success is failure reengineered. In her own life, she has seem massive failures reengineered into glorious successes. Over the last decade Stephanie has worked with many people to create a plan for their lives.

The lessons she learned in her private and professional life led Stephanie to create her simple-to-use Passion Architect™ System. In 2018, Stephanie published Succeeding with Passion to help readers unlock their potential and reach new heights. In it, she shares the tools she developed that have helped her overcome homelessness in her youth, heal dysfunctional family relationships, advance in corporate America, and ultimately, pursue her own passion for helping others. Her motivation is something she learned in her faith, "you make your dreams come true, when you help others achieve theirs."

Stephanie has been a leader in several Fortune 500 companies over the last 20 years. Her commitment to self-awareness and vulnerability, courageous leadership, and coaching has successfully allowed her to coach business owners and leaders for nearly a decade.

Stephanie's Website: https://succeedingwithpassion.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/succeedingwithpassion/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thestephwalton/

From Amy: This episode, recorded shortly after elections, was originally intended for the morning of January 6, but was mercifully delayed. One week later, as the horrors of that day come to light and we impeach the outgoing president a second time, it's the only episode I feel OK airing. Cory Busse provides comic relief without looking away from the people. I'm going to let him explain.

Cory's take on it: When my parents died, I unwillingly inherited their off-brand Christmas village. This is how I get back at my siblings for making me take it.

www.talesfromthechristmasvillage.com

Instagram: TalesfromtheChristmasVillage

#talesfromthebussechristmasvillage

Azna Amira was the first Black woman reporter for the Wall Street Journal. She's lived in Milwaukee, Atlanta, and Northfield, Minnesota—the town where we both attended Carleton College.

I met Azna in Northfield, where she returned to live following a reunion. She was among the first Black students, graduating the year I was born, and first to challenge prevailing white perspectives. Eighteen years later, Carleton was where I first had my white mindset challenged. So it felt like coming full circle to sort through this year's landmark events with her.

In Azna's words:

We've survived 2020, and—surprise!—graphically grasped the fatal flaws in our trusted institutions laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic. Whew!

Radical change is necessary, but it seems to offer as much pain as promise. There's no "normal" to return to, so what do we do?

Well, what if we learn to TALK with those who seem so different from us? Maybe they're not as "crazy" as they are simply human. Demonizing others damns us all, but hearing hearts and minds through their STORIES might reveal much of value for all.

We are our stories, and our stories are US.