Women Living the Questions

Ruby Tugade
  • 5.0 (6)
  • Personal Journals

“Women Living the Questions” celebrates older women and the courage, curiosity, and wisdom they gain over decades. Host Ruby Tugade speaks with extraordinary women about reinvention, resilience, and living fully. From her mother’s story of leaving everything familiar to claim a new life in the U.S., to conversations with some of the first female students at Yale College, Ruby highlights the richness and power of womanhood at every stage. This podcast invites listeners to honor the stories often overlooked and to see aging as a time of deepening, growth, and continuous possibility.

  1. Sara Holtz: How Yale Made Me a Feminist

    5d ago

    Sara Holtz: How Yale Made Me a Feminist

    In this episode, host Ruby Tugade speaks with Sara Holtz, who looks back on a life of storytelling: from practicing law and training women leaders, to interviewing successful women on the podcast she hosted for seven years, “Advice to My Younger Me”, about the lessons they wish they had known earlier in life. She also opens up about her experience as a member of the first class of women admitted to Yale College. With brave candor and compassionate perspective, she recounts the sexism she encountered, and how her college years made her into a feminist and a uniquely effective mentor and leader. Music: “Love” by Alex-Productions, licensed under CC BY 3.0

    31 min
  2. Ann Larson: The Sacred Work of Presence

    May 29

    Ann Larson: The Sacred Work of Presence

    In this episode, host Ruby Tugade speaks with Ann Larson, a retired Lutheran pastor whose life has evolved by ministry and a lifelong search for deeper spirituality. Ann speaks of becoming one of the early generations of women ordained in the Lutheran church, and navigating the challenges of a career that did not unfold in the ways she once expected. With striking honesty, she opens up about therapy, and learning to redefine success and failure over time. She also shares moving stories from her years in the ministry, including sitting beside people in their final moments, and witnessing death as both sacred and deeply human. Throughout the conversation, Ann looks back on the role of ritual, music, spirituality, and community in helping us live with greater presence and compassion. Music: “Love” by Alex-Productions, licensed under CC BY 3.0

    32 min
  3. Anna Boorstin: The Many Lives of Love

    May 24

    Anna Boorstin: The Many Lives of Love

    In this episode, host Ruby Tugade speaks with Anna Boorstin, a former film sound editor, writer, and lifelong reader whose reflections on love, grief, and self-acceptance reveal a life deeply examined and fully lived. Anna shares stories about growing up in Southern California during the rise of second-wave feminism, working in the film industry, and raising a family while learning to better understand herself. With humor and candor, she reflects on body image, aging, anxiety, and the complicated expectations placed on women across generations. She also speaks movingly about her late partner, historian John Archibald Getty III, and the profound experience of caring for him through illness. Their relationship transformed her understanding of love, vulnerability, and what it means to truly know another person. Inspired by the sudden loss of her stepfather, Academy-Award nominated filmmaker Alan J. Pakula, Anna eventually turned to writing her novel, No Place Like, as a way to explore grief, imagining parallel universes where the people we lose might still exist somewhere beyond our reach. Music: “Love” by Alex-Productions, licensed under CC BY 3.0

    30 min
  4. Jan Jorgensen: A Poetic Soul Pays Attention

    May 19

    Jan Jorgensen: A Poetic Soul Pays Attention

    In this episode, host Ruby Tugade speaks with Jan Jorgensen, a poet, minister, spiritual director, and lifelong reader and collector of books. Jan reflects on growing older with curiosity and tenderness, and on learning to hold both beauty and sorrow at once. She speaks about motherhood, poetry, spirituality, and the ways our earliest selves continue to live within us. With warmth, wisdom, and poetic insight, Jan shares what it means to listen deeply, and reflects on love, shame, forgiveness, and the healing that can happen when we bring our wounds into the light. Music: “Love” by Alex-Productions, licensed under CC BY 3.0.

    28 min
  5. Therese Eke: It's Up to Me. It's Up to Us.

    May 14

    Therese Eke: It's Up to Me. It's Up to Us.

    This episode includes conversations about mental health and suicide. Please take care while listening. In this episode, host Ruby Tugade speaks with Therese Eke, a nonprofit director turned community organizer whose life is about service, activism, and personal transformation. With brave honesty, Therese reflects on surviving a mental health crisis in her twenties, rebuilding her sense of self through community, and learning to use her voice in service of others. She speaks about the importance of trust and storytelling, and the responsibility she feels to stand up against unfairness. Therese has found renewed purpose through grassroots organizing in Milford, Connecticut, where she advocates for housing equity, collective care, and community connection. Music: “Love” by Alex-Productions, licensed under CC BY 3.0

    31 min
  6. Lauren Mayer: When Laughter Becomes Liberation

    May 10

    Lauren Mayer: When Laughter Becomes Liberation

    In this episode, host Ruby Tugade speaks with Lauren Mayer, a comedic singer-songwriter, teaching artist, theater director, and vocal coach whose life has been anchored in the performing arts, education, and songwriting. Her story arc spans decades of people-pleasing, and ultimately arriving at a fuller sense of herself, for herself. With candor and humor, she reflects on unlearning the “good girl” role, confronting her inner critic, and learning to fully own her talent as a gift. Now, she is channeling her creativity into work that challenges ageism and cultural stereotypes, while finding joy in making people laugh and living more fully as herself. Music: “Love” by Alex-Productions, licensed under CC BY 3.0

    30 min
  7. Diane Solomon: The Long Arc to Slow Love

    May 4

    Diane Solomon: The Long Arc to Slow Love

    In this episode, host Ruby Tugade speaks with Diane Solomon, a nurse, midwife, psychiatric nurse practitioner, writer, and educator whose life has been rooted in caregiving. After decades in healthcare, Diane is stepping into a new chapter as a volunteer educator, teaching a more honest and complex history of Oregon. Her journey has included raising four children, moving through romantic relationships, and building a career devoted to understanding human nature. With candor and reflection, she talks about growing up fast, and shares the hard-won lessons of what she calls “slow love”. Now, she’s committed to reclaiming joy, and embracing a more spacious, self-compassionate way of being. Music: “Love” by Alex‑Productions, licensed under CCBY 3.0

    32 min
  8. Alexis Krasilovsky: Living Her Heroine’s Journey

    May 3

    Alexis Krasilovsky: Living Her Heroine’s Journey

    Content Note: This episode includes references to violence, including sexual violence and assault, so please take care while listening. In this episode, host Ruby Tugade speaks with Alexis Krasilovsky, an award-winning filmmaker, author, and professor whose career spans decades of experimental cinema, academic work, and women-centered storytelling. As part of the first class of women at Yale, Krasilovsky created her first film in 1970, End of the Art World, featuring Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns, now restored by the National Film Preservation Foundation. She has built a body of work that consistently challenges dominant narrative traditions. With her forthcoming novel, Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman, she returns to the 1970s art world with a clarity that only comes with time, revisiting it as both participant and observer. ARTIST’S BIO:   Alexis Krasilovsky is an award-winning filmmaker of the documentaries Let Them Eat Cake and Women Behind the Camera. She was born in Alaska, survived sexual assault at gunpoint, and has traveled to twenty countries. Her first film, End of the Art World – featuring Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns – was made in 1971 while she was an undergraduate in the first class of women at Yale, and recently restored by a National Film Preservation Foundation award. (Her films are available on Kanopy.com.) Alexis is also a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet. Her pandemic poetry film, The Parking Lot of Dreams adapts poems from her book, Watermelon Linguistics: New and Selected Poems. Her most recent book is the forthcoming novel, Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman, which will be released by City Point Press on September 8, 2026 and is available for pre-sale at Simon & Schuster (https://bit.ly/4sG9Zvc). Alexis has an MFA from Cal Arts and is Professor Emerita at California State University, Northridge. Her pro-choice hologram, Childbirth Dream, was exhibited at the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris. Alexis lives in Los Angeles and likes to dye her hair purple and blue. For more information, see http://alexiskrasilovsky.com. Music: “Love” by Alex‑Productions, licensed under CCBY 3.0

    36 min
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6 Ratings

About

“Women Living the Questions” celebrates older women and the courage, curiosity, and wisdom they gain over decades. Host Ruby Tugade speaks with extraordinary women about reinvention, resilience, and living fully. From her mother’s story of leaving everything familiar to claim a new life in the U.S., to conversations with some of the first female students at Yale College, Ruby highlights the richness and power of womanhood at every stage. This podcast invites listeners to honor the stories often overlooked and to see aging as a time of deepening, growth, and continuous possibility.

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