This American Ex-Wife: The Podcast

Poet and best-selling author Maggie Smith shares how her divorce made her spend more time with someone she didn’t expect: herself. She explains how she learned to leave room for that self even as she shares part of it in her work. If you like what you hear, preorder This American Ex-Wife. It’s the best way to support this work.I am currently running a giveaway! If you preorder the book, I’ll mail you a “Burn it down” sticker and a signed bookplate!Show notes:Buy Maggie’s book You Could Make This Place Beautiful.You can also read Maggie’s newsletter For Dear Life with Maggie Smith The quote I think about the most from Maggie’s book is this one: “The best things to happen to me individually were the worst things to happen to my marriage. And then, this: But the best things remain.”This American Ex-Wife is hosted by Lyz Lenz and produced by Zachary Oren Smith . Illustration by Alessandro Gottardo. Show art by Suzanne Glémot.

“Catharsis” with Candice LuterMany suspect that their partner is cheating on them. Few of us show up outside the motel room to catch them in the act. Candice Luter gets honest about insecurity, breaking and recovering after her ex showed who he really was. If you like what you hear, preorder This American Ex-Wife and subscribe to this newsletter.You can listen to the podcast by clicking the link above. Or you can find this podcast on all your favorite podcast apps. If you need help finding it, here is a link!This American Ex-Wife is hosted by Lyz Lenz and produced by Zachary Oren Smith. The illustration for the show was drawn by Alessandro Gottardo. Art was made by Suzanne Glémot.Show notes:You can find Candice’s amazing designs on her Etsy store. And on her website. You can also find Candice on Instagram.In the podcast, Candice talks about her asemic journaling. She is also offering her asemic journaling as a digital download for free!---Last week, Zachary Oren Smith and I launched the first season of This American Ex Wife The Podcast. In that newsletter, I wrote that we recorded a 10-episode season, but we wanted to do a second season because there were topics, ideas, and stories we didn’t have time or space to tell.  But to do that, we needed your support.Well, I am so excited to announce that we got that support and we have a sponsor for season two!Funny Girls is a program run by The Harnisch Foundation that uses improv to teach leadership skills to girls and non-binary kids in grade three through eight. You can learn more about its work here. I am so excited for them to be a partner, because doing stand-up comedy at open mics around Cedar Rapids, helped me develop confidence and my voice after my divorce. So often, we expect men to be the jokesters and women to be the supporting audience. Learning to do stand up was my way of reasserting my power not just in my professional life, but as a way of reclaiming my own narrative. (I wrote a whole chapter about this in my book! You’ll love it!)Writing in the 1970s, feminist critic Naomi Weisstein argued that women “Must try out forms [of humor] which throw off the shackles of self-ridicule, self-abnegation; we must tap that capacity for outrage, the knowledge of our shared expression.” Laughter, jokes, humor are a way for women and people who are marginalized to regain social control and reduce feelings of powerlessness.And “leadership,” as the Funny Girls website notes, “is no joke.”The Harnisch Foundation has been supporting women in leadership since 1998, And I’m really honored by their sponsorship.  Stay tuned for more information about season two of This American Ex Wife the Podcast!

Lyz’s own divorce lawyer Allison Werner Smith stops by to walk through the long road of a divorce. She explains how “the breakdown of the marriage relationship” can become a firmer foundation for a life.If you like what you hear, preorder This American Ex-Wife. It’s the best way to support this work: https://linktr.ee/lyzlenzShow notes:In the show, I incorrectly cite this statistic about men and marriage and labor. In the podcast, I say men add eight hours of labor a week to their wives’ lives. It’s seven. My apologies to men.I also cite the statistic: 70 percent of breakups and divorces are initiated by women.Alison talks about the rise in gray divorces. You can read about that here.This American Ex-Wife is hosted by me and produced by Zachary Oren Smith. The illustration for the show was drawn by Alessandro Gottardo. Art was made by Suzanne Glémot.---In July, I sent a newsletter announcing that I would be launching a podcast as a companion to my book This American Ex-Wife.In that newsletter, I talked about how since writing about my divorce, so many people (mostly women), have told me their stories of breaking, of getting free, of the hard lessons they’ve learned about life and love.So many of those stories are the stories we don’t get to hear. The personal stories of everyday breaking. Of the deaths by a thousand little cuts. Of freedom and the happiness that lies on the other side of Eden.I read them in my DMs. I heard them after the evening’s second glass of wine. The stories were powerful, and revolutionary. So, for the podcast, I asked for your stories and you all delivered. I received dozens of voicemails and hundreds of emails. It was overwhelming, wonderful, and truly incredible.Today, the podcast is here! Over the past five months, my producer and I made 10 episode for you. In This American Ex-Wife: The Podcast, I talk to I talk to experts and ex-wives about love, capitalism, ex-wives of the past, our bodies, our names, and our identities. It’s raw, honest, real, dishy, and insightful.And most importantly, the podcast features your stories. My producer Zachary Oren Smith, wove into each episode the stories you all sent in. And because of the abundance of emails we received, I recorded two episodes where we read your stories (anonymized of course) with special guests.It was a lot of work! Turns out a highly-produced podcast takes focus, skill, and a lot of editing. I learned a lot. And I have a lot more to learn.Also, as we planned out the first season, I realized there were topics I wasn’t exploring. Queer divorce. Queering gender roles. Dating post-divorce. And on and on. These issues weren’t omitted for any reason other than a lack of time, and resources, and a couple of guests had to reschedule.All of this to say, I’d love to do a second season! And, even though I repeatedly made fun of his facial hair, so would Zach.But the reality is, that making this season cost me approximately $8,000. That’s producer labor, equipment (we even cheaped out and we’d need to upgrade for a second season), art, music, and more. That is a lot for me, but less than some of the podcast estimates I got when I was researching what it would cost.Despite the popularity of the genre, podcast companies are cutting podcasts, firing staff, and struggling to generate revenue. It’s a tricky medium to monetize. And I don’t want to get rich off it, I just want to pay my producer so he can feed his cat babies and buy a comb for his hair. I also would like to offer a stipend to guests for donating their time and labor for the project.I didn’t sell ads on this podcast. But I might in the future. I don’t know. I’d like to at least have the ability to say no to ads and not be beholden to capitalist forces.So, if you want to support the podcast, here are three things you can do:Become a paying subscriber to this newsletter.You can also rate this podcast on Apple podcast or any of the other platforms you listen on. The links will be on the right side of the newsletter. If you don’t see the podcast on your favorite streaming app, SIT TIGHT! It takes a bit for the RSS feed to populate for the first episode. After that, it will be smooth sailing.You can also support this podcast by pre-ordering the book.(1)---One quick note for transparency. I don’t earn affiliate money for links. And per my publisher’s request, I switch up the links between Bookshop, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble. I prefer independent bookstores! But I also know that our lives our complex and we are all doing the best we can. A pre-order is a pre-order. Thank you so much for your support.