00:02:44.340According to the New York Times, Charles Bolden, a former Marine Corps major general who flew on four space shuttle missions and became NASA's administrator for eight years, credited Nichelle Nichols visiting his college with giving him the idea to apply in the first place.
00:02:59.200And Mae Jemison, the first Black woman astronaut, has often publicly cited Nichelle Nichols as her inspiration.
00:03:05.960To honor the out-of-this-world woman that allowed so many of us nerds to see ourselves in different timelines and universes,
00:03:13.340we're revisiting our episode about Star Trek with Star Trek superfan Blair Imani.
00:03:19.940When you think of the future, what does it look like?
00:03:23.380In 1966, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry imagined a future where the multiracial crew of the USS Enterprise worked together to explore the wonders of space.
00:03:33.120and while they were at it they also explored race disability and gender star trek has long
00:03:40.680been a vessel for people to imagine themselves in the future when nichelle nichols who played
00:03:45.700a horror wanted to quit the show to pursue a career on broadway it was martin luther king
00:03:50.680a trekkie himself who convinced her to stay on so the world could see a black woman as0.98
00:03:56.060commanding and capable here's nichols describing the historic encounter and i'm looking at dr
00:04:02.540Martin Luther King. He said, you can't. And I couldn't. And I've never regretted it.
00:04:12.680I didn't leave. I couldn't leave. The rest is history.
00:04:19.540Is it any surprise that MLK was a Star Trek fan? In order to be an activist,
00:04:24.520you have to be able to imagine a future that's better than the current reality and believe in
00:04:30.540and the promise that the future includes people like you.
00:04:34.040Blair Armani is an activist, historian, and author.0.84
00:04:37.980Like MLK before her, she's a huge Trekkie,
00:04:40.560and the show helped her imagine a future
00:04:42.120where people like her aren't just included,
00:04:44.720but where they can also live long and prosper.
00:04:47.540Last year, Blair went to Comic-Con in California.
00:10:08.560An apple, a toothbrush, and a comic book.
00:10:12.000All the things you need to survive a night in jail.
00:10:15.200At the convention, dressed as his own younger self,
00:10:18.720Lewis led kids on a little march around the convention
00:10:20.700to help them visualize that anyone could be a hero, even them.
00:10:25.240He was there to promote his own comic book,
00:10:27.300a graphic novel retelling of the March on Selma called March.
00:10:31.720Here is the late John Lewis at Comic-Con 2016, advocating for a new generation to create good trouble.
00:10:39.120The march, book one, but also book two.
00:10:44.700And when book three comes out, it will inspire another generation of young people and people not so young to stand up, to speak up and speak up and get in good trouble.
00:10:57.220It might sound strange for a civil rights icon to be talking about comics at a convention,
00:11:02.500but John Lewis says that he was first inspired to join the civil rights movement
00:11:06.200from reading a comic book about MLK called Dr. King, Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story.
00:11:15.740I think it really shows that civil rights leaders and activists are real people with real interests.
00:11:22.940They're not just sort of like someone that you read about in February for Black History Month or like a picture in a book.
00:11:32.200And I do think there's this connection to science fiction and other nerdy interests and civil rights and activism.
00:11:39.400Because you have to be able to sort of imagine and dream that different worlds are possible to be an activist and to fight for the kind of change that you fight for.
00:11:47.920I keep making the connections between religion and, you know, sci-fi because it is the idea of a different world.
00:11:54.380Like, you know, Dr. King spoke about the mountaintop, but we can also look at that as, you know, imagining Afrofuturism and imagining ourselves in a different realm.
00:12:03.120And this whole idea that we have to get beyond the limitations of our own imagination.
00:12:07.560And sometimes for, you know, religious folks such as myself, it means trusting that, you know, Allah or God or Yahweh has the ultimate plan.
00:12:14.780And that is beyond our own understanding because we have a finite, you know, ability to understand in our current system.
00:12:21.440Or it could be to use, you know, graphics and art and illustration and comics and books and video and film in podcasts to, you know, imagine what that looks like and transport us to a different place as a reprieve from the difficulties of the world.
00:12:36.840But it's also crucial to understand that, you know, these are tools used to transport us, but they're still being created by people. And because of that, there's going to be limitations.
00:12:47.620I mean, the example I keep giving is that, you know, in Star Trek, they have people giving painful, you know, traditional birth, you know, via the birth canal. And I'm like, okay, well, if you can like zap somebody healthy with like a laser gun, then why can't you just like teleport the baby out of the womb?
00:13:05.060You know, like there's the limitations, you know, or the idea that we haven't surpassed this idea of, you know, pain during childbirth, et cetera, or just, you know, is there an incubation pod?
00:13:16.280Like, you know, because Star Trek The Next Generation was created at a specific time in history, even the things that they make as a futuristic interpretation of a current technology, it's going to be based on that current technology.
00:13:29.600But the other cool thing is that so many technologies are then based on, you know, the imaginings of previous sci-fi writers, even like Jules Verne, you know, people, as they imagine, are also limited by the imaginings of each other.
00:13:44.260And so with John Lewis, I was actually able to meet him while he was on tour during the first March book created by himself and Andrew Aiden and Nate Powell.
00:13:56.380And I spoke to him about why he decided to do this format.
00:13:59.700And it was because he wanted to reach as many people as possible.
00:14:03.380And so Andrew Aiden and John Lewis, they both love comic books.
00:14:07.440And that comic book that you refer to is called Dr. King, Martin Luther King in the Montgomery
00:14:29.500I think today we get caught up in conversations about this activism is performative.
00:14:34.740You know, if you have an outfit to show up to a protest, you're being a shallow activist, completely ignoring the fact that like the Black Panther Party didn't just wake up with perfectly symmetrical afros, excellently tailored slacks and turtlenecks and berets.
00:14:48.840They didn't just roll out of bed like that. It was all intentional and performance and art and illustration and the conveyance of information requires intentionality.
00:15:00.120And that's going to deal with aesthetics. So it's not to say we have to choose one. It's not to say one should overcome the other, but that we can have both of these things in tandem. And that sometimes we limit ourselves. We being kind of like the broader community or, you know, people who just, you know, we as a people often limit ourselves in what tools we grab onto.
00:15:21.880Because if you've only seen tweets or TikToks that cover surface level, you know, material, if the only way you've come into contact with sci fi has been at the surface level way, then you're probably not going to understand the fact that, you know, during the time of a crack epidemic, the the Star Trek universe decided to tackle addiction.
00:15:41.060You might not understand that, you know, TikTok is being used to educate young people and people across literacy and language.
00:15:48.800And so it's all about how we use the tools. And that's why I find, you know, comics and film and TV so exciting because, yeah, it's a different world.
00:16:00.040Yeah, it's not real life, but it can totally be a proxy for our real life and it can be a reprieve from our world.
00:16:05.620but then it's also very important to make sure that we check our own biases when creating that
00:16:11.040work. Fiction, comic books, cartoons, TV shows, all of them can be tools to help us better
00:16:16.640understand ourselves and the world around us. Blair is also an author. Her books, Modern Herstory
00:16:23.380and Making Our Way Home, use colorful illustrations to help introduce audiences
00:16:27.860to the concept that marginalized people of the past weren't just two-dimensional historical
00:16:33.200figures. They were complex. And the cover of both of her books kind of looked like comics.
00:16:39.160Fun fact, full circle story, is the reason why I'm an author is because of LeVar Burton.
00:16:44.180So one, LeVar Burton made me an enthusiastic reader via Reading Rainbow. And two, I thanked
00:16:49.320him for that. He started following me. And when I was trying to get a publisher for the book,
00:16:53.580he shouted me out and literally said, somebody published this woman's book. And like,
00:16:58.180out to 2 million people who are probably in literacy to some extent. And that paved the
00:17:03.800way for me, not only getting my first book deal, but my second one with the same publishing house.
00:17:08.320So LeVar Burton's amazing. And so I, you know, couldn't relish the fact that I, that, you know,
00:17:15.500imagery and things like TV and film shaped my own understanding as a reader and as, you know,
00:17:20.700an informed person. Like you might remember Jimmy Neutron, like they actually snuck in a lot of
00:17:26.400very important scientific and, you know, engineering information into that show. Like
00:17:31.600even SpongeBob talks about things that like make sense in real life. And so, and the fact that
00:17:37.460Steve Hillenburg who created SpongeBob was a marine biologist and wanted to convey that education to
00:17:43.060young people through his work. So I was definitely informed by that. And I think growing up in like
00:17:47.860the golden era of animation really helped me to kind of connect those two things. But I also like
00:17:53.820the idea of somebody picking up my book because it looks like a good coffee table book. It looks
00:17:57.640like a light read. And I do make my books accessible at a fifth grade level because most
00:18:01.760folks read at a fifth grade level and most magazines are written at a fifth grade level.0.86
00:18:05.660But I like the idea of some sweet grandma who might have, you know, conservative politics1.00
00:18:10.560picking up the book because it looks friendly on the front cover, giving it to her, you know,0.98
00:18:15.260offspring. And surprise, they're getting radicalized. They're getting educated about1.00
00:18:20.040things that are complex and intricate in a way that is family friendly and, you know, age
00:18:24.600appropriate, but things that might not be covered until they get to college because of the limitations
00:18:28.980of the educational system. So especially with my second book, Making Our Way Home, even though
00:18:34.680there's a gay couple on the front cover in the form of my uncle Lester and a partner we imagined
00:18:38.920for him, I still get emails from people saying, I didn't know this book was going to be queer
00:18:43.980affirming. Of course, they don't say it like that. But I'm like, I didn't hide anything. But because
00:18:48.900it's presented in a certain way. It doesn't detract from people who are already seeking
00:18:54.440that material, but it also invites people in who might not have otherwise engaged with something
00:18:59.660like the Great Migration or Black history that covers everything from the period of enslavement
00:19:06.520to the creation of hip hop. So I try to use imagery to sneak my way in, and it's pretty effective.0.84
00:19:13.740So we know there are Black folks, queer folks, and Muslim folks in the future.
00:19:18.640Did Star Trek help you be able to visualize that kind of world?
00:19:24.900You know, Star Trek has really helped me envision what the future looks like.
00:19:28.340So often when we look at sci-fi, it's, you know, aliens from a different universe who have a completely different molecular structure.
00:19:35.700But for some reason, they have a British accent, like WTF, you know, like white supremacy goes hard, I guess, even in sci-fi.
00:19:41.300and so I'm definitely not like under any delusions about why you know certain biases exist it's
00:19:48.080because it's the limitations of our own imagination as people but it's not only helped me understand
00:19:52.420diversity it's helped me understand how I discuss religion at large as a historian and so often that
00:19:58.980means looking back in time it's a really exciting thing to also look at sci-fi as a step towards the
00:20:04.640future Star Trek has been fundamental in the identity formation of myself as a black woman
00:20:09.980and as a Muslim woman and it's helped me speak about religion just to see how something as
00:20:15.580secular and something as you know low stakes I guess as Star Trek can be imbued with the same
00:20:21.880type of passion and vitriol but also beauty that comes with religious debates and I was actually
00:20:28.200at the School of Divinity at Princeton giving a talk and I was talking about canon and you know
00:20:34.420today we talk about canon like your fan your fan canon your head canon things that you know to be
00:20:39.060true but maybe aren't canonical to the actual franchise you know say things like maybe you
00:20:45.060believe all pikachus are related in pokemon but you don't actually have a basis for things like
00:20:48.840that and so i was talking about how in my head canon for um star trek geordie laforge is a black
00:20:56.360muslim and of course that's influenced by my own you know skin in the game i would also love there
00:21:01.020to be a black muslim in my favorite show and my favorite character to be one so of course i'm
00:21:05.160going to imbue that but there's also a basis in the fact that he's born in Mogadishu Somalia which
00:21:09.560is canonical to the text and I was talking about this in the context of religion and how you know
00:21:14.560we can all read the same religious scripture and come to completely different theological
00:21:21.060interpretations and people tend to grasp that but I was talking about how of course that happens like
00:21:27.200I think some people get confused like how can we all read the same story of Genesis and you know
00:21:32.720well we're not even reading the same story we're reading different interpretations different
00:21:36.600translations centuries old differences we're reading uh people imbuing their own biases while
00:21:42.940they translate all these different things and it was so great because i was talking to this group
00:21:47.340at this very you know like fancy institution uh princeton talking about how star trek is a case
00:21:53.560study into why there's so much religious turmoil because if something is like i said low stakes of
00:21:59.340Star Trek can start a virtual flame war over what religion is or is not in Star Trek, then of course
00:22:07.180something as high stakes as our eternal souls is going to, you know, spark a bunch of debate. And
00:22:12.720I tell people this and I think it helps them understand everything from why, you know, I feel
00:22:17.120comfortable being a queer Muslim and owning that and owning God's love to things like why fandoms
00:22:23.620can be so fraught and disconnected and, you know, just chaotic. But the really cool thing to see
00:22:31.640is how people will use the scripture or in this case, the fandom or, you know, the original source
00:22:37.380material from the creator, in this case, Gene Roddenberry and not God. Well, you know, to use
00:22:44.640that to protect and preserve other people, because it was so cool seeing like, you know, Trekkies
00:22:51.660and trekkers which are also trekkies but they use their own terminology which we respect um
00:22:56.760kind of defending me basing this in like not only star trek the next generation but deep space nine
00:23:02.920the movies the animated series all showing a basis for religion in star trek from episodes
00:23:07.880in the original series where there's a christmas tree to episodes in deep space nine where they
00:23:12.960totally get into religion to episodes in the next generation itself and i just felt so warm in that
00:23:18.600Like it was like a virtual hug from all these different strangers who were like, we're not only going to protect her as a Muslim woman, but her ability to belong in this fandom.
00:23:27.920And that's the thing about being a girl or a woman on the Internet is that you constantly have to defend yourself.
00:23:34.640And it's a relief when other people step in to do it on your behalf.
00:23:38.360Definitely. That's something that I love.
00:23:40.720Like one thing I love about being somebody who is like a woman online is people will ride for you.
00:23:45.520People will fight for you. They'll speak up for you.
00:23:47.620they'll show they'll shake tables for you they'll make sure that your voice is included and amplified
00:23:51.700and in those moments just saying yes to that trust falling into your community that has your back
00:23:58.080those have been my favorite times online oh 100 like i think that when you go to comic con or you
00:24:05.040go to a convention or any space where you're taking virtual connections and putting it into
00:24:09.640the physical realm there's always that concern of am i going to be rejected and that really goes with
00:24:13.940anything you know just like the first day at school your first day on the job am I going to
00:24:18.180be rejected and then also being in a fandom space and a geek or a nerd space it's that constant
00:24:23.900feeling of do you even know the material well enough like oh oh you like like you know you
00:24:31.280like Beyonce name all of her freckles that type of thing you know and it's like come on now like
00:24:36.520we can all enjoy things at our different levels but just the whole feeling that we don't know our
00:24:41.500stuff enough as women and that's not just like I said it's not just with Star Trek like you know
00:24:46.320the assumption that I don't know every character off the top of my head even though I totally bombed
00:24:50.400at Star Trek trivia recently but it's also the implication that we as professionals as women in
00:24:57.560the world don't know what we're talking about so that could be anything that you do like I was in
00:25:02.060the communications field when we worked at Planned Parenthood and yeah I would constantly have people
00:25:07.380telling me not their like you know thank goodness but I'd have reporters constantly questioning how
00:25:12.000I was so young and doing what I was doing how I was doing this and doing what I was doing
00:25:15.620and so it's exhausting to then deal with that in a leisurely space a recreational space but it is
00:25:21.240that beautiful thing where people will just go for you like even when you're making an inside joke
00:25:25.200amongst friends and you're ragging on each other on the internet and somebody who doesn't know that
00:25:29.460your friends are like hey leave Blair alone it's like hey actually we're cool but thanks for having
00:25:34.260my back let's take a quick break the new red bull dragon berry and tropic berry energizers
00:25:46.540now at mcdonald's made with freeze-dried fruit and an electric burst of flavor the all-new red
00:25:54.240bull energizers now at mcdonald's this product may not be right for you high in caffeine details
00:25:59.660on mcdonalds.ca at participating Canadian restaurants
00:32:55.680Okay, fun story. I was just feeling really coffee because I had spent the previous year working at Planned Parenthood, you know, educating folks in all parts of the country about abortion and abortion stigma and doing it to like solid effect, where I would have conversations with people where they would come at me and say things like, y'all are the devil. And at the end, they'd be like, oh, maybe I can take my daughter to Planned Parenthood for sex ed.
00:33:17.500so I was feeling on top of the world my talking points were working messaging was working
00:33:21.160I get an inquiry from this guy it's my last month working at Planned Parenthood because my grant was
00:33:26.360over um and so I was like yeah I can do this who is this guy I was not thinking about like oh maybe
00:33:31.920I should do some counter intel figure out who he is I'm gonna plan to come out on national tv not
00:33:36.960thinking about that I still have friends who are in the comms and like PR field who just think I'm
00:33:41.560a genius who orchestrated the whole thing not true I would like to claim that but no I was just
00:33:46.260correcting him. I forgot that we were on stage. It got to this point where I was so fed up with
00:33:50.920him dancing around it and, and really trying to erase me and pull it, poke and prod at me
00:33:56.020that I just snapped back in a very eloquent way. And I said, well, actually, in addition to being
00:34:00.800a Muslim woman, I'm a black queer person. And, uh, then I immediately realized I came out on TV
00:34:06.000and I could feel my phone vibrating in my pocket and I could, you know, my partner was actually
00:34:12.820on set with me because it was remote. So I've never breathed the same air as Tucker Carlson,
00:34:16.920Alhamdulillah, praise God. But my partner is like standing there looking at me and I can't
00:34:22.440totally look off camera because, you know, you got to hold a face and I have a pretty good poker
00:34:26.480face. But if you watch it with that knowledge, then it kind of becomes apparent that like,
00:34:31.280then when I stumbled over my words, it was because I had just come out on national TV.
00:34:35.300And so everything changed immediately. People who were homophobic, but in my life and then found
00:34:41.120who I was or, you know, am removed themselves, which I consider to be a blessing, but it still
00:34:46.320was hard. Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and CEO of GLAAD reached out. And that was awesome because
00:34:53.840GLAAD basically scooped me up and they will do this anytime somebody comes out publicly,
00:34:58.120they make themselves a resource. They help you tell your story. If you want to do press,
00:35:02.580they'll make sure that you get connected. And I really just felt scooped up and embraced by
00:35:06.660the community. And it was just like a really beautiful thing. For a year after that, I felt
00:35:11.280like I was like the bell of the queer ball in the same way that I felt like that about Star Trek. I0.77
00:35:14.940was like, oh, look at this. You know, I feel popular. And I felt like that after I converted
00:35:19.220to Islam as well. It was kind of this feeling of being new in a community and being exciting.
00:35:25.300And I also learned as I was dealing with, you know, experiencing those beautiful euphoric things,
00:35:31.160that privilege was showing up because I had the privilege of growing up in a context where
00:35:36.760I can be myself. Now, it's not to say that these things should be a privilege. You should be able
00:35:41.720to be yourself in your sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, regardless of the
00:35:47.040religious or cultural context you come from. But that is not the case. Blair didn't want to be
00:35:51.720the Black queer Muslim. She didn't want her story to obscure the stories of other marginalized people
00:35:57.020who didn't have the ability to come out like she did.
00:35:59.660So I wasn't realizing that, you know, people were calling me the queer Muslim,
00:36:05.840that people were looking at me as the queer Muslim.
00:36:08.500You know, I was becoming very tokenized.
00:36:10.760And so once I became awake to that, then I started to really immerse myself
00:36:13.920within other queer Muslim contexts and start to use my profile
00:36:18.840or increasingly large profile to help fundraise for organizations like Hedaya,
00:36:23.680LGBTQ both in the UK and the US Muslims for progressive values and start to feel that this
00:36:29.920wasn't just me on you know like the Blair show but a responsibility that I had to use um this
00:36:36.600newly found visibility for the upliftment of others because as I was telling stories that
00:36:42.080are authentic to myself and that's important to do I wasn't realizing how it was harming other
00:36:46.340people like you know I was talking about how I've never second-guessed myself for being queer in my
00:36:52.460whole life but I'm not trying to tell that story in a way that makes others feel bad for going
00:36:58.540through a homophobic you know queer phobic existence that's not what I'm called to do
00:37:03.980that's not what my role should be and so now um and I don't think it's completely shifted I've
00:37:09.620always tried to be very responsible in how I tell my story but it's this increased responsibility
00:37:13.380so when I have young people reach out to me and they're like Blair how can I be out like you
00:37:17.720I first explain to them and remind them of the context of the world that we live in
00:37:22.320and that that's something you have to decide for yourself and that whether you're out or whether
00:37:27.480you're not, you're valid. Your queerness is valid and you're not lying to anyone just because you're
00:37:33.380unable to share your truth with people because it is incumbent on our society and on the people
00:37:38.300that love you to be able to make space for you. And if they don't do that, that's not your fault.
00:37:43.080And so I've really shifted from this idea of, you know, come out, have a rainbow flag,
00:37:47.660all types of beautiful things. Those are important, but that's not all queerness is.
00:37:51.340the people who are living closeted, the people who can't come out, those stories are important.
00:37:56.400And if I can help to shed light on those or ease the lives of those people, then I'm absolutely
00:38:01.880going to do that. So, you know, your books are really about archiving and preserving all of the
00:38:08.140ways that women and non-binary people and Black women in particular, you know, the contributions
00:38:13.080that we really have made to history and society and to culture. Why is preserving that so important
00:38:18.240to you? And what can we do to make sure that these voices and these stories don't get overlooked or
00:38:23.060erased or lost? That is the biggest, most terrifying thing for me, the idea that we will only remember
00:38:30.320people through the lens of those who remember them. Because, you know, we see it happen often,
00:38:36.240unfortunately, where we'll have someone who was being critical and calling, you know,
00:38:41.640representative john lewis all types of you know besmirching names then post a you know a beautiful0.99
00:38:48.280eulogy or you have you know idiots like marco rubio posting the incorrect black person with him0.99
00:38:54.000while also claiming to honor his memory if you can't even tell us apart then no i'm not going0.99
00:38:59.380to trust that you remember us for the work that we did um and we saw it when elijah cummings passed
00:39:04.820and people thought that john lewis it's just so frustrating that we are constantly collapsed so
00:39:09.700no, I do not trust the institutions that collapse us into one monolith or, you know, sanitize our
00:39:16.540legacies like what we see with Dr. King. I do not trust those institutions to do us justice.
00:39:21.940So, you know, I had made a joke, I think, probably a couple of years ago that I was going to write my
00:39:25.900own eulogy. But I also started to think about how that opportunity is denied to so many people.
00:39:30.860And that's constantly happening to us as Black people, as Black women, as, you know, Black non-men,
00:39:36.120non-binary folks etc um and so it's fighting against all of that and really trying to go
00:39:42.440back to the original text you know like I was able to pore over some of the um you know handwritten
00:39:48.800letters that my partner's grandmother had um that she corresponded with her husband and finding
00:39:56.620those first-hand accounts there's all types of things there's pop culture references there's
00:40:00.860mentions of just so many minute yet infinitely important things that might get glazed over0.96
00:40:07.860because, you know, whatever white historian didn't give a shit or whatever, you know, academic0.96
00:40:13.800historian couldn't be bothered with because they, you know, viewed it as not important. And because0.98
00:40:20.740they didn't view it was important, it gets erased, which is terrifying because, you know,
00:40:26.480it is so we have so little power as a people as black people in this country because of things
00:40:31.700like enslavement reconstruction the new deal being a you know same old same old deal that
00:40:37.540you know really shafted black folks just i could go on and on but just all of this equality and
00:40:42.160equality in the country and not only do we not learn about those things but that just makes our
00:40:47.860condition worse because we are blamed for what we have endured uh instead of praised for getting
00:40:52.740through it while also being held down by centuries and centuries of weight. But we then have to do
00:41:00.680this whole mind, mental gymnastics of figuring out why our conditions are so poor, while we also see
00:41:08.020model minorities and white folks uplifted as evidence that the system works, but we're just
00:41:13.280not trying hard enough instead of actually learning the context. So it's one of those things where
00:41:18.160it's a cycle and the only way we can break it is by elevating the truth and by changing who
00:41:25.200is telling that truth because people are going to tell the truth that's important to them and
00:41:30.000it's going to fall along biased lines especially if the people who are telling those historical
00:41:34.760truths are faceless and nameless more after this quick break
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00:42:59.560Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.0.98
00:43:04.100I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.
00:43:08.680I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.
00:43:16.100They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:43:20.060But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.
00:43:23.500They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:43:26.640Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:43:35.600If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:43:41.540This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:43:54.020I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:44:01.140I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.
00:44:04.720From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.
00:44:10.660It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:44:18.120Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place.
00:44:27.740Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.