The brilliant Dr. Francesca T. Royster joins me to discuss her compelling new book, Choosing Family: A Memoir of Queer Motherhood and Black Resistance. We also cover a wonderful array of issues facing us both personally and collectively.

Francesca T. Royster is a native of Chicago’s South Side and a professor of English literature at DePaul University in Chicago, where she teaches classes on African  American literature and culture, Shakespeare, and gender and queer theory. She is the author of three academic books, Becoming Cleopatra: The Shifting Image of an Icon, Sounding Like a No-No: Queer Sounds and Eccentric Acts in the Post-Soul Era, and Black Country Music: Listening for Revolutions. She received her PhD in English literature from the University of California, Berkeley. Her essays have appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Chicago Literati, and Feminist Studies, among others. She lives in Chicago.

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What Matters Most
What Matters Most
Paul Samuel Dolman

Author, musician, and speaker Paul Samuel Dolman interviews a variety of people on creativity, the arts, relationships, and spirituality.

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Read the Book That Inspires the Show

Paul Samuel Dolman, author, podcaster, and speaker, presents What Matters Most (the book!) a series of interview transcriptions from more than twenty inspirational Nashville and Tennessee residents, including special guest the journalist and author Bill Moyers.

Nashville Mayor Megan Barry, former Governor Don Sundquist, Academy Award-winning actress Patricia Neal, Grammy Award-winning entertainer Wynonna Judd, and many more share intimate and inspirational aspects of themselves.

This twentieth anniversary edition also features bonus material from thirty more notables from Tennessee, including local business owners, spiritual leaders, coaches, radio personalities, authors, and educators.