Something Rather Than Nothing

Patricia Lynn is a playwright/actor who has worked extensively in NYC independent theatre. As a writer, Patricia fancies herself to be a gothic feminist; she loves to subvert the classic genre by creating provocative plays inspired by traditional gothic stereotypes. Her plays have been developed at Triad Stage, New Perspectives Theatre Company, The Secret Theatre, Rogue Theater Festival, and Phillips’ Mill Community Association. As an actor, Patricia has worked at TheatreWorksUSA, Trinity Repertory Theatre, Soho Playhouse, Capital Fringe, NYC Fringe Festival, and many more. MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University; MFA in Acting from Brown University/Trinity Re...

Victoria Astuto is a musician, composer, videographer, and educator based in the Hudson Valley.  Her debut EP, The Place features clarinet, saxophone, flute, bass clarinet, synthesizers, and vocals to create dreamy, lush, and atmospheric textures.  The album is inspired by a cross country trip she took which influenced many of the themes ranging from loneliness to finding a place in the world to escaping a place you’re already in. Additionally, Victoria scores films for indie filmmakers in NYC, utilizing her large palette of instruments to create dense orchestration inspired by the works of Johnny Greenwood, Gerald Busby, and Bern...

Leanna Renee Hieber is an actress, playwright, ghost tour guide, audiobook narrator and the award-winning, bestselling author of over Gothic, Gaslamp Fantasy, Supernatural Suspense and Non-Fiction books for adults and teens with publishers such as Tor, Sourcebooks and Kensington Books. A Haunted History of Invisible Women: True Stories of America's Ghosts, co-authored with Andrea Janes, was a 2022 Bram Stoker Award finalist for "Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction". The book explores the intersection of women's history and ghost stories. America's Most Gothic: Haunted History Stranger than Fiction, releases 9/30/25 from Kensington.

Born on the East Coast, and home to the West, Blair Borax’s relationship with music began unexpectedly in 2016, when a friend gifted her a cheap guitar.Since then, Borax has become a prolific songwriter, recording artist, and performer, known for her distinctive voice, captivating melodies, and thoughtful songwriting that taps into the heart of being human. Since she quit her day job in 2022, she has released two full length albums and played over 300 shows across the country.  With more sophisticated songwriting, a newfound confidence in fingerpicking guitar, and a move towards dynamic acoustic folk pro...

Jesi Bender is an artist from Upstate New York. ​Her work leans towards experimental historical fiction that interrogates the tension between language's utility & malleability.Jesi's gorgeous new book A Child of LIght is out now date-of-episode August 12, 2025!

Jen Michalski currently lives in Carlsbad, California. She graduated from St. Mary’s College of Maryland with a BA in English and received her MS in Professional Writing from Towson University. She was voted one of the best authors in Maryland by CBS News, one of "50 Women to Watch" by The Baltimore Sun, and "Best Writer" by Baltimore Magazine (Best of Baltimore issue, 2013).Her new novel ALL THIS CAN BE TRUE was released by Turner/Keylight in June 2025. Her debut novel THE TIDE KING was published by Black Lawrence Press (2013; winner of the Big Moose Prize and "Be...

Ophelia Darkly is a DJ, model, writer, performer, and Doll Tarot reader based out of Portland, Oregon. Magic, dreams, and storytelling are the threads that bind all of her creative ventures together. She believes that art, in all its forms, is one of the most sacred forces of the universe.Enjoy this wonderful conversation with Ophelia and the many magickal places she takes us . . . 

Something Rather Than Nothing Podcast Episode 300!!! We talk ABOLITION.Calvin John Smiley, Ph.D. is an associate professor of sociology at Hunter College-CUNY. His research and scholarship broadly focus on issues related to justice, inequality, and race. Smiley is the co-editor of Prisoner Reentry in the 21st Century: Critical Perspectives of Coming Home (Routledge, 2020). He is the author of the award-winning Purgatory Citizenship: Reentry, Race, and Abolition (University of California Press, 2023), which explores how system-impacted individuals navigate and negotiate the reentry experience with diminished legal rights and amplified social stigmas. Further, he is the author of Defund...

Katie Marie is a Cherokee/Choctaw educator, Indigenous Wisdomkeeper, and decolonial guide who works at the intersection of healing, community, and education.Enjoy this ranging conversation into matriarchy, wellness of being, Indigenous futures, our planet, Art & Philosophy!

Annabel McConnachie (she/her) is an actress, writer, singer, dancer and content creator. She is originally from Sydney, Australia but is currently based in New York City. She is best known for her work in the critically acclaimed miniseries 'IKEA Heights - The Next Generation'.Her much anticipated new play 'Archive of My Own' made its stage debut in a moved reading at the Tank.THANKS FOR LISTENING!

Sophia Hembeck is a bilingual writer and artist based in Edinburgh. She has published three books (Things I Have Noticed, 2020 & Things I Have Loved, 2023 & Thiings That Are Different Now, 2025) which are compromised of her essays and short prose as well as artwork that she specifically created for the books. They are part of her poetic-memoir trilogy." She’s a fierce advocate for literary essays and teaches essay writing classes for writers of all levels.You can buy her books here.Instagram: @sophiahembeck

This episode was recorded and captured LIVE on Independent Bookstore Day (April 26, 2025) from Browsers' Bookstore in Albany, Oregon. Pete Dryden:Photographer, cabinet maker, professional overthinker. Hiding out in Albany, Oregon—dodging small talk, chasing meaning in the grain and the frame. Restless mind, calloused hands, too many questions and never enough quiet.Abe Richmond:Owner of Browsers’ Bookstore. If spotted in the wild, he is reading totally tubular titles.We talk about bookstores, Edward Abbey, Kathy Acker, Morrissey, Hunter S. Thompson and so much more.Celebrate Independent Books...

About Craig Randall - I've loved stories and literature and writing for as long as I can remember. For just as long, I've also struggled with anxiety and depression. They have loomed over me, all my life, threatening to steal away whatever hope and joy i've worked so hard to build.All my work, the fiction and the poetry, was born out of this struggle as I worked to overcome and deal the hardships these struggles brought on.There's so much to the story, which I will write about later. In the mean time, just...

Shippentower is named Co-Captain of the Oregon Ravens Football Team!Kola Shippentower is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. She has co-founded and is the Director of The Wisáwca Project - Enough Iz Enough, a non-profit organization working together for change, for better communication and involvement.Kola has developed a Safety Plan to be utilized by anyone in identifying safety methods, contacts, and procedures to keep one safe whether in an abusive relationship or a plan to track a missing person. She is a professional fighter a...

Meghan Lamb is the author of Mirror Translation (Blamage Books, 2025), COWARD (Spuyten Duyvil, 2022), Failure to Thrive (Apocalypse Party, 2021) All of Your Most Private Places (Spork Press, 2020) and Silk Flowers (Birds of Lace, 2017). Her work has also appeared in Quarterly West, DIAGRAM, Redivider, and Passages North, among other publications. She currently teaches creative writing through the University of Chicago, Story Studio, Hugo House, and GrubStreet. She is the fiction editor for Bridge Books and the nonfiction editor for Lover's Eye and Nat. Brut.Music here

Raechel Wolfe is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Portland, OR, whose work spans film, writing, modeling, and Creative Direction. She made waves by creating FINK, the world’s first Instagram-exclusive short film, and was a founding member of the core team behind Buckman Journal. Raechel continues to push creative boundaries, now adding curator to her dynamic portfolio.Featuring co-host and model/artist Jenny Peterson.For Your Eyes Only

elle nash is an electrifying writer based in glasgow, scotlandthis is about her book 'deliver me' - At a meatpacking facility in the Missouri Ozarks, Dee-Dee and her co-workers kill and butcher 40,000 chickens in a single shift.The work is repetitive and brutal, with each stab and cut a punishment to her hands and joints, but Dee-Dee’s more concerned with what is happening inside her body. After a series of devastating miscarriages, Dee-Dee has found herself pregnant, and she is determined to carry this child to term.Dee-Dee fled the...

Vanessa Stockard recently visited the podcast for the 3rd time!Vanessa Stockard was born in 1975 in Sydney and spent her formative years in a small country town in the Mid North Coast of New South Wales.  At 12 she returned to Sydney as a boarder at Abbotsleigh.  After graduating from the College of Fine Arts (COFA) Sydney in 1998 with a BFA, Stockard launched head first into the avant-garde art scene in the bohemian village of Glebe.Stockard is one of the most dangerous artists on the Australian, and by extension, international scene.  Her ethereal works of art...

Aaron Keuter is an editor, motion designer, animator, and visual effects artist in Portland, Oregon. Aaron creates show bitsSomething Rather Than Nothing  is a worldwide podcast that features the greatest creators you can find.

Rachael Tyrell aims to create art that reimagines classic pinup aesthetics through a contemporary lens. Working primarily with Sharpies and various inks, she crafts pieces that radiate raw energy.Her sculptural work transforms everyday objects into surreal expressions, challenging expectations.Drawing from her background as a model, Rachael's art explores the fluid boundary between being seen and seeing. She wields ink with intention as each permanent line shapes her distinctive visual language.Her autobiographical zines blend intimate narrative with striking imagery and have traveled with her to zine fests in Los Angeles, Detroit...