Decolonize yourself - it sounds like such a daunting task, right? But it doesn't have to be. Guest Shebana Coelho - writer, performer, and creativity coach - talks about how creativity and play (especially embodied creativity and play) can be c...

According to the National Breast Cancer Foundation, 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime. Breast Cancer Facts & Stats 2024 - Incidence, Age, Su...

How much thought have you given to death? Not just who gets what when you're gone, but also who you want around you in your last moments, what your passwords are, and how you want to be memorialized, just to name a few. Death is easily one of t...

It's time for the next installment of our Banned Books Series! This month's book is The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo. Published in 2018, The Poet X tells the story of a 15-year-old Dominican American girl finding her voice as she grows up and co...

So much has happened in our lives since our last life episode that we decided to give y'all an update. Tune in to hear what's going on with us!Mentioned in this episode:Money Mindset Financial Coaching:

This week's guest Saoirse Nash shares her personal story of living with a long-time chronic UTI and the struggle to get the necessary testing and treatment. Saoirse is a director, content contributor and patient liaison at Live UTI Free Ltd., a...

Do you remember sex ed from your school days? Did you actually learn anything? Is sex ed even taught in schools anymore? If it is, its days are likely numbered in this political climate. It turns out lack of adequate, comprehensive sex educatio...

This month's selection is The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid. Published in 2022, The Last White Man is the fifth novel by the British Pakistani novelist and consultant Mohsin Hamid. Written as an extended allegory, it tells the story o...

Despite being one of the wealthiest nations in the world, poverty continues to be a seemingly unsolvable issue in the United States. But is it really unsolvable? This week's guest, Devon Gray, argues that poverty is a problem that can be solved...

In this episode we speak with guest Anika Pavel about her memoir Encounter with the Future, chronicling her journey from childhood in communist Czechoslovakia to her experience as an immigrant to her life now as a writer. And that's just the ti...

In this episode, we have the genuine pleasure of chatting with our Super Fan Susannah Cragwick! After all of the mutual admiration, we dove into Susannah's incredible story of redefining herself after growing up in a high control, conservative ...

Welcome to the 2nd installment of our Banned Books Series! This month's book is Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, a 2003 novel that Atwood described as speculative fiction rather than pure science fiction because it doesn't deal with things we ...

Given the amount of mis- and disinformation in the news it's increasingly important that we make smarter decisions about the news we consume and where we get it. But how do we do that? Our guest, journalist and anchor, Jasmine Styles talks to u...

Porn's influence is everywhere - just take a look around. But what is it like to work in the porn industry as a writer, to have a view behind the curtain. Robert Rosen's book Beaver Street: A History of Modern Pornography gives the reader a vie...

In many ways, the country (and possibly the world) is trying to make sense of the 2024 election and what lies ahead. We’re doing the same. Join the postmortem and let us know how you’re processing Trump’s reelection. 

Welcome to the 1st installment of our Banned Books Series! In this episode, we discuss George M. Johnson's All Boys Aren't Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto. This is a beautiful and important book. Tune in to hear our reactions to and understanding of A...

Sometimes a poem or a piece of writing just speaks to you. In the first book of our Banned Book Series, All Boys Aren't Blue, George M. Johnson talks about Paul Laurence Dunbar's We Wear the Mask - a poem that has significant meaning for Raquel...

Have you ever wondered why you react in certain ways or why you have particular feelings or aches and pains? It turns out that a lot of it is based in childhood. It's our subconscious blueprint. Although there are a number of helpful techniques...

Regardless of whether you are tuned in to popular "news", chances are pretty good that you've heard something about the Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni saga. We dive in with our opinions about this debacle in this minisode. What are your though...

In this week’s episode we’re telling y’all about one of the ways that we are striking back at Project 2025 - we’re doing  a banned book series in 2025! For each month of the coming year we’ll discuss a book that has been banned. In...

We're trying something a bit different here at Madness Cafe - minisodes! These are a chance for us to pop in from time to time when we feel the urge to chat a little about a timely topic in the zeitgeist. Our very first minisode is about Black ...

What is ethical non-monogamy? Is it the same as polyamory? Are we talking about swinging? We're talking about all that and more with Lauren Hayes, a relationship coach specializing in supporting ethically non-monogamous (ENM) couples, including...

How much do we really know about our parents, grandparents, and our family history? How do they fit into the backdrop of history as a whole? Susan Servais' mother Kathe Mueller Slonim gave her family the gift of her story in the book Escape Fro...

In this week's episode, we discuss Varuni Sinha's memoir, Golden Handcuffs: An Immigrant's Pursuit of Happiness. Varuni, a New York-based writer and multimedia producer, describes her book as a story of love, strength, and resilience written wi...

Sexual abuse is objectively a difficult topic. Even more so when the predator is your father. Cindy Benezra knows this all too well; her predator was her father. In her memoir, Under the Orange Blossoms, Cindy shares her story, along with how s...