The Women Are Plotting

Jane Gari, Etienne Rose Olivier, Heidi Willis
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Do you know how to use a rotary phone? Worry about how much Aquanet you inhaled as a teen? Wonder about the creative worlds of writers? Believe belly laughs make the best ab workouts? Seek answers to the mysteries of menopause?    Then welcome to The Women Are Plotting -- a new podcast that allows a peek into the unfiltered minds of three Gen X writers. Give us a listen. And if you like what you hear, tell your friends.   If you have a story or an idea you'd like to share, we'd love to hear from you! Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com 

  1. 1D AGO

    Three Friends Trade Their Worst Dates and the Lessons They Refuse To Forget

    Dating can sometimes be thrilling. And other times absolutely unhinged. Our wildest dating horror stories may make you laugh, cringe, and rethink your safety plan for your next first meet.  We start with a hilarious “not-a-date” blind date to a Hamptons rave that brings hostage vibes to mind, before moving on to an OKCupid date featuring age lies, drunk negging, and leering tag-a-long friends.  We end with a multi-week dating experience where tiny icks—heavy footsteps, salad slurping, and "almost" empty condiments—foreshadow a hard boundary breach around hygiene and kink consent. Each story is ridiculous, but each also reveals a principle worth keeping: believe what people show you, exit fast when a boundary is crossed, and never apologize for protecting your peace. We don’t just vent; we translate chaos into practice. Keep first meets short and public. Don’t debate the red flag that shows up on minute ten. Listen, laugh with us, then add your voice—we want your worst-date stories and your dating dealbreakers. If you smiled, winced, or took a note, please follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review so other listeners can find us. Your stories might save someone’s night (or make it!). Send us a text Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com, and find us on all the socials. Be safe and be excellent to each other.

    45 min

  2. JAN 29

    From Tea, Shawls, And Scrolls To Modern Drafts: How Writers Build A Process

    We swap myths for methods and share the rituals, tools, and edits that actually move pages from first draft to final. From Hardy’s shawl to Hugo’s naked deadline, we strip the romance down to reliable habits, smart structure, and brave cuts. • Thomas Hardy’s routine and why rituals prime focus • Kerouac’s scroll and the limits of superstition • Victor Hugo’s nude deadline hack and modern equivalents • Personal cues that trigger flow without lyrics • Placeholders to bypass roadblocks and keep momentum • Outlines, character bios, and scene objectives • Working with editors, beta readers, and writing groups • Cutting 20k words, merging characters, and pacing fixes • Dialogue that starts late and ends on change • Meditation as an idea gateway and habit anchor Send us a text Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com, and find us on all the socials. Be safe and be excellent to each other.

    39 min

  3. JAN 22

    Babysitting In The Eighties

    Jane, Heidi, and Etty trade raw, funny, and unsettling babysitting stories—celebrity trivia, 80s nostalgia, grooming red flags, an axe in a basement—while tracing how babysitting moved from teen rite of passage to vetted adult work. We end with clear lines on safety, values, and what kids miss when teens stop sitting. • how 80s babysitting shaped teen autonomy and risk • why teen babysitting declined and the rise of adult sitters • boundary setting, consent, and spotting grooming • hotel gigs, wedding childcare, and strange house rules • parenting values vs sitters’ beliefs and language • safety planning, alarms, exits, and emergency thinking • screens vs play and what teens learn by caring for kids • the sweet perks: snacks, cable, and Solid Gold memories Send us a text Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com, and find us on all the socials. Be safe and be excellent to each other.

    38 min

  4. JAN 15

    Burning Man Changed My Brain

    Think a festival is just loud music and long lines? Try building a city from nothing, losing your tent to a dust storm, getting adopted by strangers, and watching 70,000 people cheer a sunset after the sky finally breaks. We go deep on Burning Man’s origin and layout, the wild generosity of the gifting economy, and why art cars, late-night DJs, and a “library” with severe late fees can add up to something close to a spiritual reset. Heidi takes us inside her first burn: a three-day drive with a near-stranger, the shock of dust, rain, and mud, and the kindness that appears exactly when you need it. We talk about flaming octopi and sheep-shaped sound systems, disco-themed porta potties, survival in scorching heat, and the moment the city shifts from spectacle to community. Her self-protection habits start to crack, and a different kind of courage comes through. We widen the lens to festival culture at large—from the Pythian Games to today’s explosion of music festivals—and why gatherings like this are popular. There’s a reason the phones go quiet and the conversations go deep. We unpack how to bring the best parts home: more play, more art, more purpose, and a renewed commitment to real human connection. Curious but not ready for the big burn? We point out regional burns like Alchemy near Atlanta as a welcoming on-ramp. If you’re craving less doomscroll and more aliveness, you’ll find ideas, laughs, and hard-won tips here. Hit play, then tell us: would you brave the dust for a week that might change your mind? Subscribe, share with a friend who needs a reset, and leave a review to help more listeners find the show. Send us a text Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com, and find us on all the socials. Be safe and be excellent to each other.

    1h 12m

  5. JAN 8

    How a 7 Day Meditation Retreat Rewired Stress, Belief, & Healing Part 2

    What if attention and emotion could nudge your biology toward healing? We dive into a potent mix of emerging research, lived experience, and practical tools to explore how meditation, sound baths, and intention might change the way the body behaves. We talk through exosomes—tiny messengers that carry proteins and microRNAs—and the provocative idea that elevated neural activity and emotion could influence gene expression beyond the brain. It’s a big claim, but we ground it with routines anyone can try: loving-kindness, breathwork, yoga, salt baths, and self-Reiki. You’ll hear revealing stories: a sudden drop in sugar cravings after a full-moon sound bath, pain relief after a foot injury thanks to Reiki, and a long history of stress-linked dermatitis easing with consistent meditation. We also reflect on collective healing sessions, the role of epigenetics, and why feeling the outcome as if it’s already here is the key to seeing changes in your life. Along the way, we consider sleep, wearables, and energy hygiene—turning off devices, stepping away from EMF during deep work, and using movement as a gateway into stillness. This isn’t about blind faith; it’s about testing simple, low-cost inputs that quiet stress and let the body self-correct. Whether you’re “woo-curious” or data-driven, you’ll leave with things to try, resources to explore, and a renewed sense of agency over your inner world. If this conversation sparks something, share it with a friend who needs a nudge toward calm, subscribe for more curious deep dives, and leave a review to help others find the show. Send us a text Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com, and find us on all the socials. Be safe and be excellent to each other.

    42 min

  6. JAN 1

    How a 7 Day Meditation Retreat Rewired Stress, Belief, & Healing Part 1

    What happens when you sit at 4 a.m. and breathe yourself into stillness for five and a half hours? We follow that question into Joe Dispenza’s retreat world, where heart-brain coherence, deliberate breathwork, and intention-setting collide with stories of recovery, time dilation, and a surprising lack of stress after the fact. We’re candid about how a structured seven-day schedule can change your baseline more than any single mystical moment. We start with the backstory—Joe’s accident, the visualization that reshaped his path—and then ground the conversation in research on meditation’s effects on gray matter, the amygdala, and emotional regulation. From there, we walk through the retreat mechanics: guided sessions, kaleidoscope focus, and pineal gland work timed to melatonin’s pre-dawn peak. Whether you’re curious about the quantum field framing or you just want practical tools, we translate big ideas into clear steps you can test: morning body scans, loving-kindness for compassion, and a simple daily hour that shifts your nervous system out of high-beta churn. Along the way, we share hard-won stories—ICU resolve, sound-bath visions, and coherence healing circles that feel like focused compassion in action. We also look at growing collaborations with researchers, control groups, and odd signals like random number generators that seem to “notice” heightened coherence. You don’t have to chase fireworks to benefit; becoming the person who can relax into “the nothing” and choose a future feeling is often enough to change your day—and, over time, your life. If this episode helps you breathe easier or think differently about practice, tap follow, share it with a friend who needs calm, and leave us a quick review so more curious minds can find the show. Referenced in this episode: https://sourcethefilm.org/ Send us a text Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com, and find us on all the socials. Be safe and be excellent to each other.

    41 min

  7. 12/25/2025

    What Fictional World Would You Call Home?

    What if the fictional worlds that raised us were more than escapes—what if they were blueprints? We trade closets for cosmos and follow the thread from Narnia’s lamp-lit snow to Starfleet’s hopeful future, from campus rooms that spark courage to city streets where magic hides in plain sight. Along the way we test our cravings: a society without want, a classroom that opens a life, a love story that knows its limits. We start with wonder. Childhood awe lives in The Chronicles of Narnia and in a real-life classroom modeled after Dead Poets Society, where literature isn’t just homework, it’s a rehearsal for bravery. Then we move to science fiction, where Star Trek models a peaceful Earth and Star Wars adds a mythic scale that makes us itch to belong to a bigger story. We interrogate power, consent, and seductive bad-boy archetypes from Twilight to Fifty Shades of Grey. From there the conversation tilts darker and sharper. A Discovery of Witches reframes magic as scholarship and intimacy. And, Anne Rice threads immortality through history and faith, showing how adaptations can miss the point when filmmakers ignore a story’s moral spine. We unpack the film Passengers and why a romantic setup turns ethically thorny under pressure, then hold dystopias to the light: Brave New World’s pleasant control versus The Stand’s reset, where community and books rebuild meaning after the noise of a crowded humanity has settled. Through it all we keep returning to one simple act: reading. Not as escape, but as calibration. Stories teach us what to want—and what to refuse. They sketch better classrooms, saner technologies, and kinder politics. Press play for a lively, candid tour of the universes we’d actually live in, why they matter now, and how to carry their best parts back home. If this sparks your own shortlist of dream worlds, share it with us, subscribe, and leave a review so more curious listeners can find the show. Send us a text Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com, and find us on all the socials. Be safe and be excellent to each other.

    53 min

  8. 12/18/2025

    From Misdiagnosis To Hysterectomy: An Endometriosis Journey Part 2

    Part 2 of Martha’s long road through endometriosis continues. In this episode, we discuss more complications she experienced post-hysterectomy, including sudden menopause and the hormone therapy that finally restored her life. We focus on advocacy, access, and the value of specialists who treat endo beyond “bad cramps.” Yale article mentioned in part 1 & 2:  https://medicine.yale.edu/news/yale-medicine-magazine/article/endometriosis/ Martha's doctors & surgeons mentioned in this episode:  Dr. Rachel Cowherd https://www.getcare.muschealth.org/providers/rachael-cowherd-1043604374 Dr. Thomas Curran https://www.getcare.muschealth.org/providers/thomas-curran-1205147022 Dr. Cristian M. Thomae https://www.getcare.muschealth.org/providers/cristian-thomae-1306934658 Heidi's surgeon in Bonita Springs, Florida: https://providers.sharecare.com/doctor/dr-jorge-a-valle Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com and find us on all the socials Send us a text Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com, and find us on all the socials. Be safe and be excellent to each other.

    53 min
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About

Do you know how to use a rotary phone? Worry about how much Aquanet you inhaled as a teen? Wonder about the creative worlds of writers? Believe belly laughs make the best ab workouts? Seek answers to the mysteries of menopause?    Then welcome to The Women Are Plotting -- a new podcast that allows a peek into the unfiltered minds of three Gen X writers. Give us a listen. And if you like what you hear, tell your friends.   If you have a story or an idea you'd like to share, we'd love to hear from you! Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com 

Information

  • Creator
    Jane Gari, Etienne Rose Olivier, Heidi Willis
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    28
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Women Are Plotting
  • Show Website
    The Women Are Plotting