The Lift Up

Tamara Crawford and Vina Orden
  • 5.0 (6)
  • BOOKS

A monthly transatlantic conversation hosted by Tamara Crawford and Vina Orden about books, writing, identity, and representation, centered on marginalized voices and stories.

  1. S2 E8 SABRINA & CORINA: Writing a Place for Oneself

    11/03/2021

    S2 E8 SABRINA & CORINA: Writing a Place for Oneself

    In this episode, we discuss Sabrina & Corina by Kali Fajardo-Anstine; a collection which evokes a powerful sense of place in these stories set in Fajardo-Anstine's hometown of Denver & in southern Colorado, centering the lives of Latinas of Indigenous ancestry. Through the mostly working-class women characters, Fajardo-Anstine explores personal & collective histories; intergenerational trauma & resilience; issues of class, race, & queerness; feminism and sisterhood; & agency & transformation in spite of powerlessness & adversity.

    34 min
  2. S2.E7 ISLAND QUEEN: Bringing Hidden Histories to Light

    10/06/2021

    S2.E7 ISLAND QUEEN: Bringing Hidden Histories to Light

    In time for Black History Month in the UK, hosts Tamara Crawford and Vina Orden discuss Vanessa Riley’s epic historical fiction novel Island Queen. Island Queen is based on the life of historical figure Dorothy Kirwan Thomas, who was born enslaved in 1756, managed to free herself and her family, became a transnational entrepreneur, and rose to be among the most wealthy and politically powerful people in the Caribbean. Through Dorothy's personal story of love, loss, trauma, defiance, perseverance, survival, and legacy, readers also learn a larger history of Dutch, Spanish, French, and British colonialism in the West Indies; the resistance movements and revolts led by enslaved peoples in Haiti, Grenada, Barbados, and Jamaica throughout the 18th and 19th centuries; and the lesser-known story of free Black women in the Caribbean, some of whom were successful entrepreneurs like Dorothy.

    42 min
  3. S2. E6 THE MERMAID OF BLACK CONCH: Cultural Collisions / Convergence

    08/11/2021

    S2. E6 THE MERMAID OF BLACK CONCH: Cultural Collisions / Convergence

    The Lift Up is excited to be back after our brief summer break with Season 2, Episode 6, featuring Monique Roffey's genre-bending novel The Mermaid of Black Conch! On one level, The Mermaid of Black Conch is a story of an unlikely romance between an ancient Taino woman-turned-mermaid and a modern-day Caribbean fisherman. But it is a much larger story too—about colonial history and its social and economic legacies; interactions and relationships that cross racial, ethnic, cultural, and class lines; and notions of womanhood, sisterhood, and the ways women fight against gender norms and expectations and manage to thrive despite a culture of misogyny.

    38 min
  4. S2. E5 THE SEEP: What it means to be human

    06/02/2021

    S2. E5 THE SEEP: What it means to be human

    As we’re trying to see our way out of the pandemic, The Seep proves a timely read. It’s a story about social transformation brought about by an alien entity The Seep, which seeks to ameliorate human suffering—poverty; sexual & gender as well as racial and ethnic discrimination; death—in exchange for information about what makes humans “human.” Which begs the question, if our struggles & complexities are eliminated in a utopia, can we still call ourselves human?

    33 min
  5. S2.E4 THE SON OF GOOD FORTUNE / POTIKI: Fighting for Home

    05/12/2021

    S2.E4 THE SON OF GOOD FORTUNE / POTIKI: Fighting for Home

    In time for Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month in the US and the launch of a campaign to establish East and South East Asian (ESEA) Heritage Month in the UK, hosts Tamara Crawford and Vina Orden discuss Pilipino American writer Lysley Tenorio's novel The Son of Good Fortune and Māori writer Patricia Grace's reissued classic Potiki. Both Tenorio and Grace write against invisibility, having been raised on the Western canon but never encountering stories or characters that resembled their own experiences and cultures. Potiki, a story about the Māori community protecting its land against developers attempting to seize it, and The Son of Good Fortune about a young Filipino who discovers he’s undocumented, both challenge dominant notions about who gets rights to land and human dignity—issues very much in the forefront of public discourse today.

    44 min
  6. S2. E3 NIGHT SKY WITH EXIT WOUNDS / THE TRADITION: American Beauty | American Violence

    04/07/2021

    S2. E3 NIGHT SKY WITH EXIT WOUNDS / THE TRADITION: American Beauty | American Violence

    Both with National Poetry Month around the corner, and with the anti-Black & anti-Asian violence going on in the US, it is timely that The Lift Up had chosen these two poetry collections to discuss: Ocean Vuong‘s Night Sky With Exit Wounds, and Jericho Brown‘s The Tradition. Both poets explore the concurring states of beauty and violence in their own unique experience of America and the body in relation to place, personal and collective histories, and being in the moment.

    41 min
  7. S2.E2 BREASTS AND EGGS: Reclaiming our bodies and ourselves

    03/03/2021

    S2.E2 BREASTS AND EGGS: Reclaiming our bodies and ourselves

    In recognition of Women’s History Month in the US and in the lead-up to International Women’s Day on March 8, hosts Tamara Crawford and Vina Orden discuss celebrated Japanese writer Mieko Kawakami's Breasts and Eggs, her first novel to be translated into English. It is an intimate portrait of the lives of contemporary urban, working-class women that also boldly interrogates social and cultural mores around womanhood and sexuality—from internalized white beauty standards, to expectations of marriage and motherhood, to imposter syndrome and creative ambitions.

    42 min
  8. S2.E1 RED AT THE BONE: The selves we inherit & invent

    02/03/2021

    S2.E1 RED AT THE BONE: The selves we inherit & invent

    This New York Times Bestseller and Notable Book of the Year (2019) is a story of two families told from the perspectives of various family members. It examines class, gender roles, queerness, and the intersections between personal & collective history, in this case the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 and the Great Northward Migration of 6 million African Americans from the rural American South to the urban Northeast, Midwest, and West.

    27 min
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About

A monthly transatlantic conversation hosted by Tamara Crawford and Vina Orden about books, writing, identity, and representation, centered on marginalized voices and stories.

Information

  • Creator
    Tamara Crawford and Vina Orden
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2021
  • Episodes
    18
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Tamara Crawford and Vina Orden
  • Show Website
    The Lift Up