Stars and Stars with Isa

Shannon Shaw’s signature is to channel her layered feelings into her art. As the founder and vocalist of the indie punk band Shannon and the Clams, she has shared about some of the hardest things in her life through her music. Earlier this year Shannon and her band released their latest album: The Moon is in the Wrong Place. Tasked with the uniquely difficult need to express and explore the various stages of grief after the shocking death of her fiancé, The Moon is in the Wrong Place is a vulnerable and honest journey filtered through the band’s signature garage-soul sound. Isa Nakazawa discusses how Shannon’s Capricorn rising serves as the catalyst to explore her artistic expression despite being told music wasn’t for her. While her Gemini Sun knows how to move fluidly between ecstasy, despair, grief and eternal love.

Chef and creator Nasim Lahbichi grew up eating Puerto Rican meals with his mom, learning Moroccan recipes from his dad and eating Italian dinners at his childhood best friend’s house in New York City. Now Nasim cooks and shares recipes with millions of people online. Isa Nakazawa sits down with Nasim to discuss the deep appreciation his food expresses for the variety of cultures that raised him, how his Gemini rising embodies the energetic intensity of his city, and how his Taurus moon keeps him grounded in the sensuality and beauty of the meals he “yes chefs” into being.

Gabby Rivera is a writer, podcast host, and storyteller. Her young adult novel Juliet Takes a Breath was critically acclaimed and she is the first Latina to write for Marvel comics, bringing superhero America Chavez to life. Gabby’s work often combines experiences  from her own past, the political realities of present-day America and the future she envisions for her queer kin. The stories she writes work to correct the lack of narratives like her own – growing up queer within a religious, Puerto Rican family in the Bronx. Isa Nakazawa discusses how Gabby’s Aquarius moon eventually led her to embrace a radical softness and vulnerability that now defines her personal life and writing.

Self-described “Black Feminist Love Evangelist,” Alexis Pauline Gumbs has been widely praised for her incisive thought and inspired prose. The author recently released her new book Survival is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde. Alexis is the first researcher to explore the full depths of Lorde’s manuscript archives, and the book illuminates Lorde’s understanding of survival on a changing planet. Isa Nakazawa sits down with Alexis to discuss her and Lorde’s relationship to their fathers, what it means to mother and how her chart reflects the same breadth and depth as her writing.

Actor and producer Johnny Sibilly is known for his roles in the hit show Pose, the reboot of Queer as Folk, and the award-winning HBO show Hacks. As a pre-teen, stumbling across the original Queer as Folk on his family’s TV helped him to understand himself more fully, and ever since Johnny’s carried a commitment to the fullness and mess that real representation requires. Isa Nakazawa sits down with Johnny to talk about how his Virgo sun makes him a powerful study of character, and how his Gemini rising expands his vision beyond binaries.

Vanessa Benavente currently plays none other than Mary, the mother of Jesus herself, on Netflix’s The Chosen. Vanessa describes the years that led up to this role as “the typical overnight success that takes 15 years.” Working on the show has been more than a career highlight, it’s expanded her views on spirituality. Isa Nakazawa sits down with Vanessa to talk about how her Sagittarius sun has allowed her the flexibility to take bold risks, while her Aries moon propels her to action and passion.

As an award-winning poet, writer, and performer, Danez Smith’s words are always right on time. This year they released their latest poetry collection BLUFF, calling out the dualities and contradictions alive in all of us, including themself. As one reviewer wrote, they demonstrate that we all contain “protest and police, cowardice and commitment, money and kindness, looting and food drives.” Isa Nakazawa sits down with Danez to talk about how their Leo Sun keeps them grounded in childlike wonder of the world, while their Sagittarius rising drives their endless curiosity. 

DJ, producer, and musician Jahi Sundance’s Cancer Rising allows him to build sonic and emotional worlds for his listeners. His Cancer’s sensitivity balances his more angular earth placements in the house of Gemini, which Isa Nakazawa says could make the birth chart of a “con artist.” But Jahi is anything but as his star map also provides equilibrium. Isa catches up with Jahi at the Blue Note Jazz Festival, and together they discuss how his Capricorn Sun and Virgo Moon have steered him through the business of being a working artist – helping him to build stability where none exists. 

Karla Cornejo Villavicencio is the award-winning author of two books: her nonfiction debut, The Undocumented Americans, and her latest, a novel called Catalina. Catalina follows a Latine senior at Harvard who feels stuck between the opportunities an Ivy League diploma offers and the limiting realities of being undocumented in America. Though Catalina may be loosely autofiction, Karla deftly gives her readers what they think they want, while, as she says, ‘making them regret it.’ Isa Nakazawa sits down with Karla to discuss how her Cancer sun shines through in her ability to write storylines that reflect a more honest and messy set of realities.

A writer, therapist, and political organizer, Prentis Hemphill moves through the world with the intensity, depth and the tenderness of their Scorpio moon. Host Isa Nakazawa spoke with Prentis shortly after the publication of their deeply moving book “What It Takes to Heal.” The book is full of the learnings from their time as Healing Justice Director at Black Lives Matter Global Network and from their own life-- from childhood to parenthood. With a questing, playful Sagittarius sun and a rhizomatic rebellious Aquarius Rising, Prentis lives out their star map in all of its generative abundance.