Love and Life through the Pen

Love and Life through the Pen

Tashiena and Natalie are a queer american couple. They love one another through every obstacle and struggle the modern prison throws in the way. Tashiena is serving a life without parole sentence in Michigan's one women's prison, where she works at bringing restoration and hope to all of the people she interacts with. Tashiena uses the pen to build towards liberation from the penitentiary. Natalie is a prison abolition and transformative justice activist and artist. This show is about humanizing love and life through the pen.

Episodes

November 20, 2023 10 secs

Taking a break!

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This week Tashiena and Natalie talk about Love and Jesus and Love and more Jesus. What does it mean to live into love in action? How do we stretch ourselves to love even those who may be the hardest for us to love? And, then how do we see people through the worst things they may have done, into the roots of what caused the harms and into who they are today--transformed and worthy. All the while remembering to return to the well to ...

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November 6, 2023 38 mins

On this episode of Love and Life, we welcome two of our dear friends and comrades in the liberation struggle--Lawanda Hollister and Peter Martel. Both served way too much time in Michigan's prisons and they stay in the movement work for the freedom of the folks they left behind. Tashiena dives into Dr. King's Letter from Birmingham Jail as a guidepost for our conversation about standing steady, ready, and full even when peo...

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October 28, 2023 24 mins

This week we bring a brilliant young woman onto Love and Life. Tanisha Williams, also know as Red, is a thinker and doer. She loves the women she is forced to live among and works to lift them up in creative ways. She also shares her difficult past and trauma with the world in order to work toward her own freedom and to also lift up the reality that so many woman who are imprisoned are so much more than their worst moment/s in life...

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October 21, 2023 22 mins

In this episode, your hosts talk about distinct moments of personal politicization. Tashiena reflects on the infusion of her surroundings and experiences leading to radicalization from early on in her life, before she had the word politicization. And, Natalie echoes with her own growing up and geographical and personal identity laying the ground for this shared bone deep knowing and doing. It's funny, sad, and deep. Join us on ...

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October 17, 2023 14 mins

Tashiena and Natalie talk about the importance of relationships as the solid foundation for building action towards liberation or liberation activism. They also reflect on the creative nature of their relationship and how tapping into connection is critical to a love centered bedrock--even when there are so many obstacles (i.e. 15 minute phone calls and metal edged miles between). They talk about a night out in Detroit to see Jessi...

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October 14, 2023 19 mins

On this episode of Love and Life through the Pen, Tashiena and Natalie celebrate their one year wedding anniversary--October 12--by sharing stories from inside and out here. Their reflections center all of us around the importance of building relationships, family bonds, and villages to care for one another in order to get through the hardest of times. Tashiena gives a shout out to AFSC's Good Neighbor Project which is a way to...

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October 10, 2023 21 mins
This is our first episode of Love and Life through the Pen. It is a slice of the living and loving we engage in everyday through the obstacle of prison. Tashiena is a magnificent writer and Natalie is an artist. We dialogue on the regular about the deep stuff of life, and we are also funny. Tashiena is serving a life without parole sentence at the one women's prison in MI where she has been held hostage by the state for 24 years. N...
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