Susquehanna Life Out Loud — My Latest Audio Creation
I am thrilled to announce that now produce & host a new podcast Susquehanna Life Out Loud
I live along the Susquehanna River which forms a large and very long valley, which we locals just refer to as The Valley. It is jam packed with nature, local culture, amazing food, festivals, and events.
The people of The Valley are a unique brand of American. We live three hours or less from some of the largest cities in the USA, yet we have remained isolated and insulated from the wider world for a long time. That has been changing because of the Internet and chain stores and restaurants, but the region still retains much of its own specific flavor along with hundreds of small farms and scores of old time farmer’s markets.
James Stroud and Glen Retief in Cape Town, SA
Susquehanna Life Magazine has highlighted the region for the past 25 years. I first became aware of the magazine in 2013 when my husband Glen, who is originally from South Africa, wrote an article, 48 Hours in the Susquehanna Valley. His childhood friend, James Stroud, visited for two days, so Glen pulled out the stops and showed off the region. James, a successful African wild life painter was charmed, captivated, and awed by it all. For him it was downright exotic.
In reading Glen’s article, I read other portions of the magazine and found about a dozen places and events in the region I had never heard of before. Through the years each issue continually surprises me with fresh ideas for new excursions, adventures, and my favorite of all, food to sample in the region.
I decided I wanted to produce a podcast to coincide with each issue of the magazine. I interviewed Glen and created a pilot episode I pitched to Erica Shames, the founder and publisher of the magazine. She loved it! Within three days we agreed to go ahead. We have been sorting through possible theme songs, looking at cover art for the podcast avatar, and hastily planning the Spring 2020 issue episode of the podcast.
The podcast is up and running and already showing up in various podcast providers like Spotify, Stitcher, etc. Enjoy!
Cover art by Christine Bakke
Although I retired the Homo No Mo play in 2008, I have continued to perform the opening scene (and will feature it in the next episode of 
As someone who experienced trauma and is surviving it, I understood there was a time to move on to other work that was not directly related to my own story. That history though–both the trauma and the overcoming–are essential to my life today, and still comes up in my work around climate change and queer Bible scholarship. Last year I connected my wacky conversion therapy sordid past with my climate work today. I wrote an essay, 
More and more though that conversion therapy past and the ways I addressed it through art and activism are a biographical footnote. Stil, I know I could never be doing the work I do today if it weren’t for the many lessons I learned through Doin’ Time speaking out about conversion therapy.
As an actor, I approach Biblical texts in a slightly unorthodox way. Sure I use traditional tools to study the text, but I also use the training I received in the theatre to explore the characters presented, including the ones who are in the scene but do not have speaking parts. The story of Samson and Delilah has the intrigue, sexual tension, and depth of a Shakespeare play.
Since 2004 I have worked full-time as a theatrical performance activist, presenting original one-person comedies about the extremely serious issues of reparative therapy, Bible interpretation, and climate change. 
After thousands of performances in over 30 states and 20 countries, 
I will still do some live presentations, but I will be much more selective about where and when I perform live. 
These are fine things, and there are millions of other ways we can do climate work including supporting LGBTQ community–in particular transgender and non-binary people and organizations. The healthier, well supported, and politically free a group of people are before extreme weather events, the more resilient and safe they are before, during, and after those events.