The Story Collider

This week, we conclude our final Stories of COVID-19 series with two stories about the lasting impacts of the pandemic. Both of these stories ask: Where do we go from here?Part 1: Months after Howard Lieberman contracts COVID-19 on a business trip in March 2020, he continues to suffer from symptoms of the virus.Part 2: When Monica drops off her fiancé, who has been suffering from shortness of breath, at the hospital, she doesn’t know it’s the last time she’ll see him alive.Nationally known storyteller Howard Lieberman moved from Brooklyn to bucolic but shockingly Republican Stillwater MN in 1990. His jaded yet surprisingly tender performance style has made him a favorite on the national and, thanks to Zoom, global storytelling scene. Howard is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Storytelling Network.Monica is a trainer, higher education educator, an instructional designer, and a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion facilitator with more than 20 years experience. She works for the University of Michigan as an instructional designer and DEI educator. She is a proud graduate of both Wayne State University as well as Central Michigan University where she obtained both a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a Master’s Degree in Education. Monica loved to dance, listen to music, travel the Caribbean, and watch television until, that is, her fiancé died of Covid-19 in April...here is her story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, we bring you two stories about the struggle to find balance during the COVID-19 pandemic, whether it’s as a scientist, a mother, or all of the above.Part 1: Psychiatrist Xiaosi Gu studies COVID-19’s impact on mental health, just as her own begins to deteriorate.Part 2: Stacey Bader Curry’s family and career are thriving — until the pandemic throws it all into chaos.Dr. Xiaosi Gu is one of the foremost researchers in the area of computational psychiatry. Her research examines the neural and computational mechanisms underlying human beliefs, decision making, and social interaction in both health and disease, through a synthesis of neuroscience, cognitive science, and behavioral economics approaches. After receiving a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Economics from Peking University in Beijing, Dr. Gu moved to New York City to pursue a Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Gu then completed her postdoctoral training in computational psychiatry at Virginia Tech and the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London (UCL). During her time in London, she founded the world’s first computational psychiatry course at UCL. Before re-joining Mount Sinai, Dr. Gu held faculty positions at the University of Texas, Dallas and UT Southwestern Medical Center. She is currently an Assistant Professor in Psychiatry and Neuroscience, and a Principal Investigator at the Friedman Brain Institute and the Addiction Institute at Mount Sinai.Stacey Bader Curry is a writer and storyteller who lives in Maine. She is an 8-time Moth Slam winner, including a Grand Slam, and has performed on PBS' Stories From the Stage, and many podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In our fourth installment of this series, love conquers all, even the obstacles presented by COVID-19.Part 1: Having planned to tie the knot in April 2020, Jared Waters finds himself separated from his fiancée by COVID lockdown instead.Part 2: The pandemic prompts Jamie Brickhouse and his partner of thirty years to consider getting married for the first time.Jared Waters is Stand-up Comedian residing in New York City. He hails from Brunssum, The Netherlands. Jared gained his stand up legs in Tampa, Florida. His hard work and consistency with the ability to work clean and edgy has led him to be one of the most impressive Up and Coming comedians in the New York. When Jared is in between jokes, the future of this great nation is residing on his shoulders as Kindergarten teacher and host of the Podcast “One Man, One Tree, and a Hill”Called “a natural raconteur” by the Washington Post, Jamie Brickhouse is the New York Times published author of Dangerous When Wet: A Memoir of Booze, Sex, and My Mother, and he’s appeared on PBS-TV’s Stories from the Stage, The Moth Podcast, Risk! Podcast, Story Collider Podcast, and recorded voice-overs for the legendary cartoon Beavis and Butthead. He is a four-time Moth StorySLAM champion, National Storytelling Network Grand Slam winner, and his daily #storiesinheels TikTok videos have over two million views. Jamie tours two award-winning solo shows, Dangerous When Wet, and I Favor My Daddy. His new show, Stories in Heels: Tall Tales of the Women Who Changed My Life debuts at the Gotham Storytelling Festival in New York City, November, 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, we bring you two stories about negotiating life under the same roof during the COVID-19 pandemic. Part 1: When Gail Thomas moves in with her family during the pandemic, tensions brew between sisters.Part 2: The pandemic brings Wendy Bredhold and her ex-husband back together under the same roof for Thanksgiving.Gail is a writer/actor/storytelling coach and lawyer living in NYC. Her voiceover credits include John Cameron Mitchell’s Anthem: Homunculus, Angelo Rules, David Letterman, and Beavis and Butthead. Her short comedy, My BFF won audience favorite at New Filmmakers. As a speechwriter for over 30-world class events including the Tribeca Film Festival, her words have been uttered by Oscar winners and fancy people with great clothes. But none of that matters now, we’re in a pandemic. Gail is out walking her dog.Wendy Bredhold works for climate and environmental justice representing the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign in Indiana and Kentucky. She lives in Evansville, Indiana with her daughter Beatrice Rose and cats, Pearl and Pinky. She loves dancing to live music, reading, writing and rabble-rousing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, in our final Stories of COVID-19 series, we bring you stories about managing the fear the pandemic introduced into our lives.Part 1: A disagreement about COVID-19 precautions drives a wedge between Archy Jamjun and his partner.Part 2: Julie Grace Immink tries to hide her fear from her young son when her husband is hospitalized for COVID-19.Archy Jamjun is the curator of Outspoken LGBTQ Stories at Sidetrack. He is a two time winner of The Moth Grand Slam, a guncle, and has been published by BarrelHouse and The Coachella Review.Julie Grace Immink is a photojournalist based in Milwaukee. She works on documentary projects about the human condition. Her working-class upbringing has inspired her work to focus on the socio-economic landscape of subcultures and communities. You can also find her kayaking the wilds of the Midwest or talking to strangers (the stranger the better). See her work at: juliegracephotography.com or on Instagram @FORMandGROOVE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, we introduce our third and final Stories of COVID-19 series, which will be airing for six weeks. We’ve decided to begin this series in the same way that we started our original Stories of COVID-19 series back in November 2020 — with New York City nurse Harvey Katz.Part 1: Harvey, a brand-new nurse, is thrust into the hectic environment of a Brooklyn ICU at the onset of the pandemic.Part 2: In spring 2021, New York City nurse Harvey Katz begins to reckon with the trauma he’s experienced in the past year.This story originally aired in November 2020, in the debut episode of our first Stories of COVID-19 series.Harvey Katz is a nurse living and working in Brooklyn, NY and one of the hosts and creators of Take Two Storytelling - a monthly storytelling show and podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

For the final episode of our Human Nature series, we, appropriately, go back to our roots.Part 1: After a dangerous incident, Kalā Holiday begins to question his work as a tour guide in his ancestral land of Hawai’i.Part 2: Jeremy Richardson must reconcile his roots in coal country with his identity as a climate scientist.Kalā Holiday is a lineal descendant of the original native inhabitants and caretakers of Pu'uhonua o Honaunau, a temple that was (and still is) a place of refuge. He actively participates in ceremonies and rituals involving the ancient religious sites of his ancestors in hopes of maintaining and preserving the practice for future generations. As a guide, Kalā has shared his home and heritage with hundreds of visitors from around the world using tourism as a platform to demonstrate to outsiders that his home is far more than just pineapples, Elvis Presley, and coconut bras.Hailing from a third-generation coal mining family in West Virginia, and with more than ten years of experience in climate and energy issues, Jeremy Richardson focuses on federal climate and energy policy development, specializing in the economics of energy—particularly coal and nuclear power—and writes and speaks passionately about the need for a just transition for the coalfields. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this week’s installment of Human Nature, our storytellers find humility in the natural world.Part 1: After working in the Everglades, ecologist Stephen Smith expects his new gig in Cape Cod to be a piece of cake until one winter day in the sand dunes.Part 2: Henrique Bravo plans to travel the world in search of 30 endangered species, but after he departs on his journey, he begins to wonder if he has bit off more than he can chew.Stephen Smith is a Plant Ecologist at the Cape Cod National Seashore, with expertise in plant physiology and plant community ecology. Stephen received a B.S. degree from Florida State University and a M.S and Ph.D. from the University of Miami. After spending 5 years working on the restoration of the Florida Everglades, he assumed his current position with the National Park Service in 2002. Stephen's current activities are focused on understanding the dynamics of spatial and temporal variability within plant communities in all the different ecosystems within the Seashore.Henrique Bravo is a PhD student from Portugal based in the Netherlands, studying the symbiotic relationship between tiny Caribbean (gall) crabs and corals. In his spare time he likes to be in the water, on a squash/tennis court, reading a good book that might change his life, looking for endangered species, or traveling a bit. He is currently collating the adventures from his Pan-American trip into a book. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this week’s installment of our Human Nature series, two storytellers find resilience on the high seas.Part 1: Tragedy strikes suddenly while Lindsay Cooper is in the field studying right whales.Part 2: Rachel Cassandra dreams of a life on the sea, but her captain makes unwelcome advances.Lindsay Cooper is an operations professional who started out as a whale biologist. She spent years following endangered North Atlantic right whales up and down the U.S. east coast. Now she takes her three kids to visit the Smithsonian’s Sant Ocean Hall in DC, where they can view one of her photographs in the right whale exhibit. She will always have a deep passion for conservation science and science outreach. Lindsay loves working behind the scenes to help Story Collider manage day -to-day operations. Besides hanging out with her kids, Lindsay takes time to volunteer for the local swim team and elementary school PTA. She loves coffee, pajamas, and dancing, and once a year you can find her performing with the famous Olney, MD Hip Hop Mamas. Rachel Cassandra is a journalist and essayist, working in print and radio. She lives with her snake, Squeeze, in Oakland, California. You can find her work at RachelCassandra.net. This story was adapted from a piece that Rachel wrote for Narratively, here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, our Human Nature series continues with stories of hope — something that can sometimes be hard to find when it comes to our relationship with the planet.Part 1: A U.S. customs agent asks Canadian climate scientist Simon Donner an unexpected question.Part 2: As a child, Victoria Gee becomes determined to rescue the wildlife in her neighborhood.Simon Donner is an interdisciplinary climate scientist and professor in the Department of Geography at the University of British Columbia, where he teaches and conducts research at the intersection of climate change science and policy. He is also the director of the UBC Ocean Leaders program, and holds appointments in UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries and UBC's Atmospheric Sciences Program. He is currently a lead author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report and a member of Canadian government's Net-Zero Advisory Body.As a nature enthusiast, Victoria studied Environmental Biology for her undergraduate degree at the University of Guelph. For the past 7 years Victoria has worked at the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto where she fosters curiosity within visitors and develops her science communication skills. As a digital education producer, Victoria recently worked for The Land Between charity creating online curriculum for students about Ontario turtles and the importance of their habitats. Victoria will be going back to school this year to complete a post-graduate program in Environmental Visual Communication to continue her passion for sharing nature through media with others. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.