Reframeables

Reframeables’ first ever live recording!

Writer Junot Diaz said: “When the world is burning, spending a little time with one’s people — in our case: book lovers — is no small gift, precisely because the world is burning.” So that’s what we did with our live podcast recording a few weeks ago. We spent time with our people: fellow book lovers and the extraordinary Emma Donoghue, reframing risk and reinvention.

Irish-Canadian Emma Donog...

Having spent a week at the Cannes Film Festival, we are now in withdrawal. Nat’s watching Marvel shows with her guys — and though she loves a good action TV show, she's missing the nuance. Bec is filling the hole with The Pitt — with a beefier Noah Wyle. Which brings us to our guest: Michel Ghanem, better known as TV Scholar. He's French, he's smart, and he does some serious research on the TV that’s out there and wo...

We love reading books that express things we actually may have always known in our hearts, but previously didn't have the language for. Dr. Serene Khader’s book Faux Feminism: Why We Fall for White Feminism and How We Can Stop was one such book for Nat, and so we brought Serene on Reframeables to talk more about her work and break down the book for an absent Rebecca. We talked about feminism’s changing landscape in North Ameri...

When we started this podcast three years ago, we never anticipated that we'd be sitting down to talk with a Canadian Paralympian medal winner — but if anyone can reframe resilience, it's Paralympian Allison Lang. We loved so much about this chat — learning about Allison's sport, sitting volleyball, and how that opened the door for her to move forward from some pretty brutal bullying to become a disability advocate in...

Who couldn’t use a mood boost these days? We’re grateful for good people doing good things to counter all this mess — like Julia Stewart, our next guest in our resilience series. She’s the CEO of Alurx, a wellness company with a cool health app (that you should check out, by the way). Julia and Nat almost missed each other because of the fires that were happening in L.A. — the day that we were supposed to record, she was being evac...

Nat did the morning drive before the age of podcasts, and a voice that kept her sane on the road for all those years was the CBC's very own Gill Deacon — the next guest in our series where we reframe resilience. With Gill, we discuss resilience from a number of angles: her health challenges over the years with breast cancer and long COVID, and how she used writing to help her reframe along the way. We also talk about her new S...

We continue reframing resilience with Dr. Poppy Gibson, a lecturer in education whose key interests involve children’s psychological development and mental health, and wellbeing in education. Nat had actually previously met Poppy when writing for a journal that she edits, and after doing some digging found out some really significant similarities! We talk about how both Nat and Poppy almost died, and Poppy’s children’s book about h...

Many famous people have been through the doors of Laurie May, co-founder and president of Elevation Pictures, one of Toronto Life's most influential Torontonians, and this episode's guest. We talked about our mothers and our own experiences of motherhood, what it means to be resilient in the face of hard business decisions as a woman in leadership, manifesting gratitude, and, of course, some celebrities. We could have kep...

Reframeables returns with a new six-episode series on female-focused resilience! Our first guest is Jenn Harper, the founder and CEO of Cheekbone Beauty — a cosmetics company which aims to help every Indigenous person see and feel their value in the world while developing sustainable colour cosmetics that won’t end up in a landfill. Jenn has been featured as Chatelaine’s Woman of the Year in 2019 and was on Canadian Business’ New I...

We often have conversations with folks who have written books. In this episode of Reframeables, Nat has a thoughtful conversation with child therapist Niomi Cherney, who’s in the midst of drafting her very own book on how to talk to loved ones with opposing viewpoints — think Trump supporter at one end of the table, and leftist liberal at the other. Essentially, this episode is their attempt to reframe mental health in times of cri...

For this episode of Reframeables, we had the opportunity to speak with award-winning poet and novelist Canisia Lubrin about her new book Code Noir. After the interview, she sent the Reframeables duo an email, calling us both badass and tender, which is probably the best compliment we’ve ever been given — so there’s that. For context about her book, in 1685 France’s King Louis XIV passed a decree consisting of 59 articles meant to g...

We are reframing the productivity narrative with Instagram and Substack-famous sketch artist Nishant Jain — otherwise known as the Sneaky Artist. Nishant trained as an engineer, almost got his PhD, and then switched tracks to make art in public — sneakily. Now his full-time gig is sketching with a recognizable yellow fountain pen so that he can’t erase anything — he’s very committed to the line. And if you’re ever in Vancouver, you...

On this episode of Reframeables, we are reframing rage with author Kathryn Mockler. She spoke with us about the despair of writing and editing climate justice work, and how she’s moved forward from rage and exchanged hurt for the earth for human connection. She calls it ‘post-hope,’ though instead of ‘hope,’ her preferred word is ‘possibility’ — a possibility for shared concerns in community, be it in her writing or in her teaching...

This week, we are reframing fiction as truth-telling with novelist, playwright, and clothing line creator Claudia Dey. You’ll hear our conversation filled with so many truths born of fiction, creating constraints to create, and the companionship of language. We talk about Claudia’s newest novel Daughter, and Hamlet, and theatre school memories of Claudia’s play Trout Stanley. We also get into how we can’t waver from value systems i...

Is reframing burnout even possible? According to Emilie Aries, the founder of Bossed Up, it is — sort of. Emilie is a speaker and author whose company is committed to closing the gender leadership gap. In this episode, you’ll hear our conversation about the systemic nature of burnout culture, particularly for women. We unpack “role overload,” try and take a really realistic look at boundary setting, and learn the difference between...

This week on Reframeables, we spoke with author Lisa Whittington-Hill about her new book Girls, Interrupted: How Pop Culture is Failing Women. With Lisa, we jumped right in with a discussion about female rage, considered the failings of media for middle age women and teenage girls, and shared some nostalgic memories of Courtney Love — who Lisa has defended loudly enough to get her thrown out of parties. We are unhappy with the miso...

Pop culture is supposed to be light — downright breezy. Or, as we discovered in our conversation with celebrated Canadian author Jen Sookfong Lee, it can be something more: a bridge to navigating the complexities of intergenerational trauma, reckoning with one’s place in the world, and, perhaps most poignantly, facing the self. We hope you are able to take Jen’s pop culture wisdom and use it to help you reframe some of your own sel...

This week we are reframing pop culture as self-care (or reframing the inside joke) with author R. Eric Thomas. In a wonderfully meandering conversation we talked about faith, office cake, gardening, hiking up (and then running down) mountains, looking to Oprah as a way to prepare for big feelings, and using Chekhov for life metaphors. Finally, we landed on using pop culture references as bridges to help us connect with others. We r...

This week, we are reframing friendship — or more specifically, the friendship fail. To find out how a deep friendship has the potential to be rehabilitated, we talk with friendship expert Shasta Nelson, who has been called the Brené Brown of friendship. We talk about reframing loneliness, qualities every friendship needs, not downplaying our successes, and so much more. Listen for all the goods — your friendships will thank you.