Dead Ladies Show Podcast Dead Ladies Show Podcast

Our 36th episode brings you a glimpse of the acclaimed author of some of the most chilling tales in contemporary American literature, Shirley Jackson. She blended gothic & horror elements with explorations of women’s alienation & search for identity. In her real life, she was forced to balance her tremendous talent with the everyday duties of a wife & mother & societal expectations of femininity, which she defied at every step. Our presentation from Krista Ahlberg comes courtesy of Dead Ladies Show NYC.

In Episode 35, DLS Podcast producer/host Susan Stone presents the life of Ida B. Wells. This pioneering Black journalist, suffragist & activist was born into slavery in Mississippi in 1862. She became a teacher, newspaper editor & international lecturer, fighting injustice & racism the whole time. Her hold-nothing-back editorials & books exposed the horrific practice of lynching in the American South. On her steely path to justice, she accepted no compromises, making friends & enemies along the way.

In Episode 34, we’re once more in Muenster as guests of the Burg Hülshoff Centre for Literature, which happens to be named after a Dead Lady poet, Annette von Droste-Hülshoff! This time around, we’ll get introduced to Willa Muir, a prolific translator who brought Kafka into English for the first time. Born on a small Scottish isle, she was eyewitness to some of Europe’s most important moments. She worked in tandem with her husband Edwin, who somehow managed to get all the credit.

Episode 33 takes us virtually to Muenster as guests of the Burg Hülshoff Centre for Literature, which happens to be named after a Dead Lady poet, Annette von Droste-Hülshoff! However, we’re here to talk about mystery queen Dorothy L. Sayers. Best known for her detective Lord Peter Wimsey, she was also a translator & prolific writer with what might best be called a turbulent private life. She made an early living in advertising and later wrote essays on both Christian and feminist subjects.

Episode 32 introduces enthusiastic ghost-buster Rose Mackenberg! Sometimes called “Harry Houdini’s Girl Detective,” Rose was dedicated to debunking psychics who scammed vulnerable and grieving Americans recovering from the tragedies of World War I and the Spanish Flu of 1918. She started out as a stenographer and private investigator, joining forces with famed magician Houdini to crusade against fraud and psychic swindlers.

In Episode 31, we meet Alexandra Kollontai, a Marxist revolutionary who became one of the first female diplomats, representing the Soviet Union in Norway and elsewhere from 1922.

After the revolution, she founded the “Women’s Department” to improve women’s lives in the new state. Kollontai wrote about marriage and traditional families as oppressive and about sexuality as a natural human instinct, and she lived by these values for many years.