Page de couverture de This Is Your Strange and Beautiful Life

This Is Your Strange and Beautiful Life

This Is Your Strange and Beautiful Life

Auteur(s): Erica J. Schmidt
Écouter gratuitement

À propos de cet audio

Welcome to This Is Your Strange and Beautiful Life! In this podcast, writer Erica J. Schmidt talks to people who may—or may not—have had the chance to transform their lives into spectacular TED talks. Cherished guests include Erica’s beloved grandmother, talented fringe performers, and more fascinating folks from across generations and communities. Discover new takes on creativity, morning routines, art, mental health, eating disorder recovery, perfectionism, and healing, plus a loving advice column segment in almost every episode. Oh, and sometimes there are tiny singsongs!

About the host: Erica J. Schmidt is a writer, translator, storyteller, and recovering gifted child living in Montréal. She is currently querying a novel about that time she fell in love with her eleventh therapist. To learn more, check out Erica’s generously personal essays at ericajschmidt.com/blog

Art Hygiene & Healthy Living Psychologie Psychologie et santé mentale
Épisodes
  • How to Be a Writer with Kyle Stevenson

    How to Be a Writer with Kyle Stevenson
    Jun 26 2025
    Today my guest is my super cool, ultra fit, deeply compassionate and hilarious friend and creative genius Kyle Stevenson. I met Kyle during my year one playwriting class in which he played the leading man, The Vegan Life Coach in the staged reading of my debut play, She Is Not Catholic, She Is Vegetarian. And he nailed it. For years, Kyle and I ate lentils and kale and piles of impossibly healthy food at The People’s Potato. Over multiple free lunches we discussed all our favourite topics, namely sex, anxiety, creativity, yoga cults, butt exercises, therapy, and how to make it as a writer. When we grew up, we would often convene in various playgrounds in Toronto to get caught up on the latest in Gay Husbands, deadlifting regimes, and what we’re supposed to be doing with our lives. Kyle is famous for founding the wildly successful online pandemic workout class, Cyber-Fit, also known as Push-up Class. He has been a devoted scriptwriter for decades and for years, he has been my dream guest. This episode is my longest one yet but totally worth it! You’ll be a different person at the end than you were at the beginning. That’s what happened to me and Kyle!Also, there’s a blog version of the listener question from Working to Live While My Boyfriend Works to the Point of Self-Destruction.Kyle says that blogs are making a comeback, so please check it out. You can read it here! Infinite thanks!Chapters(Full shownotes at www.ericajschmidt.com/podcast/how-to-be-a-writer-with-kyle-stevenson)(00:00:00) Intro + theme song + Kyle’s bio(00:02:36) How Kyle and Erica were anointed with the idea that we would transform our exquisite gifts and innate potential into a spectacular TED talk and the world would be totally delighted about it. (00:04:50) “Absolutely from a young age I was like, why would you not achieve your wild dreams and be recognized and lauded by the world by just doing super great things that everyone agrees is very very impressive. Nothing else made sense to me.”(Kyle thinks it is more embarrassing to have self-identified as this person of promise as opposed to Erica whose life great mythology was forever altered when she skipped grade two.)(00:07:48) Erica’s thoughts on Special Person Syndrome: “I always just thought that I was supposed to get the main part… like in the grade one Halloween concert, I was incensed if I didn’t get to be the head pumpkin. (00:08:55) Kyle’s first literary influence: Bruce Coville’s My Teacher Is An Alien (grade four)“So then you read a lot. And then, just whatever you’re doing, you’re kind of like, well, what if I did that.” (00:10:00) How it was easier to be a star when we lived in villages of 75 humans. Kyle on finding your way to excel in a small group: “By middle school, my goal for an English essay was not an A, but I considered it a failure if our teacher didn’t use my essay as an example for the other class.”Erica: “Pressure!”(00:13:17) Why is it so hard to enjoy the things you are good at for their own sake?(00:14:51) Did Kyle start writing seriously in grade seven?Kyle: “I would dispute the term serious… The desire to write came pretty early. Like I started a lot of journals in elementary school… But I don’t know if that was about, oh I love to put the words down, at the time I think it was more, like my life is so big and my emotions are so powerful. And it’s more a way to document than to write a great lit novel. Like I’ve got to keep track of the incredible, the ins and outs of my life. Like this record will be useful one day. Which is so embarrassing! But I know I’m not alone, I know we’re just out there being narcissists…”(00:18:43) On being a loveable person with a big fan club. What is the role of people pleasing and conflict aversion in all this? Where is the model for an ability to make friends as integral to an important life?(00:25:00) Kyle’s early visions of creative success and what it means to have an important life“I imagined success to be an end to the wondering of like, do I matter, am I important. Maybe more than anything else, you’re like, I hope everyone agrees that I’m important and then I’ll have to stop wondering myself. And when that clicks into whatever you do, that’s when things get way less fun.”“At the end of your life, I can’t imagine you’ll wish, I wish I’d spent more time wondering if I mattered… I could have been doing something way more memorable… that mattered or not. I could have had one more ice cream cone, or went down the slide one more time. But of course the human mind, it cares not for what will matter later. It’s very pressed for what matters right now.”(00:26:52) Kyle’s educational path from linguistics and Old English to Creative Writing at Concordia University. He decides that writing is his dream and proceeds to move into a house with ten people, party hard, and work on his short stories. “I’ve never been good at ...
    Voir plus Voir moins
    Moins d'une minute
  • True Stories to Save the World With Nisha Coleman

    True Stories to Save the World With Nisha Coleman
    Jun 12 2025
    An interview with Nisha Coleman—I have only been dreaming of this since I started the podcast. At long last, we welcome Nisha to This Is Your Strange and Beautiful Life. Nisha is a superstar in the Montreal artist and storytelling community. We all know and love her as an accomplished author, actor, translator, storyteller, and master of the one-woman show.It all started on a swamp in rural Ontario. Born to hippie parents with minimal TV, Nisha learned how to make her own stories and games. Though she was a bashful child, Nisha grew up to discover the power of telling the truth.Secret teenage journals transformed into the magnificent storytelling performances she brings us today.As wars rage on our melting planet, it’s a hard time for sensitive creative souls. Nisha opens up about her struggles with mental health, her grief for our suffering earth, the genocide in Palestine, and the redemption she finds in art, learning, and community. But despite the heavy topics, our conversation is full of giggles and gentle wisdom. Listen to the end for Nisha’s coveted advice on learning a language, reigniting the creative spark, plus a pile of inspiring routines that sometimes involve vacuuming.Thank you so much, Nisha. This was as wonderful as I imagined.CONTENT WARNING: Discussion of mental health struggles, death fantasies, and suicidal ideation.Full shownotes at ericajschmidt.com/podcast/true-stories-to-save-the-world-with-nisha-colemanLinks and ResourcesFollow Nisha on Instagram @nishacolemanand check out her website at nishacoleman.com.Buy Nisha Coleman’s children’s book, Dear Humans: A Letter from the AnimalsNisha’s teenage journals on Grownups Read Things They Wrote as Kids: “Puberty has taken her!”Follow Erica on Facebook or Instagram or check out her website at ericajschmidt.com. You can also make her day by sending her a listener question to any of these places.If you enjoyed this episode, you might also enjoy Chill Creative Flow With Jeff Gandell, Crochet for Peace with Montréal’s Most Adorable and Edgy Comedian (and Winner of Best Baby Face), Shosho Abotouk, and Painting Boundaries with Bean Nunnerley. Lydia Davis Daily Journalling Practice: Every day write down seven things you noticed, seven things you did, one thing you heard, plus a little doodle. Listener Question from Writer’s Block Survivor Actually Stuck This TimeDear Nisha and Erica,For the past six months, I’ve been in the worst creative rut of my life, and I don’t know how to get out of it. Back in the fall, I released my first album, but since then I’ve only managed to finish one song — maybe six minutes of music total — even though I’ve been working almost every day. I usually write slow, but this has been really discouraging.Not long after I launched my album, I lost a close friend, and I guess I kind of fell into a depression. While I’ve written through hard times before, this time it feels different. I keep generating little ideas, but they all seem terrible, and now I’m starting to wonder if I’ve just lost the spark. I was hoping to release another album by next year, but now I’m doubting whether I’ll ever get there, or if music composition is just over for me.Have you ever gone through a stretch like this, where the well just feels empty? If so, what helped you find your way back?Love, Writer’s Block Survivor Actually Stuck This Time.Thank you so much for listening! To support this independent podcast, please consider purchasing a Lil and Bud dog greeting card at ericajschmidt.com/merch. You can also make a one-time donation here at The Donate Button.Feel free to get in touch for other sponsorship possibilities. My infinite thanks for all of this.More infinite thanks, as always, to Taes Leavitt (darling big sister, Big Heart Journey), Sherwin Tjia (technical and creative advisor, Sherwin’s Quirky Events,Episode 22) and my dearly departed aunt Eileen Gun, whose generous gift helped to fund my new podcast equipment. And infinite thanks to you, my dear listeners! Stay tuned for more episodes extra soon. Don’t forget to followThis Is Your Strange and Beautiful Life on your favourite podcast platform. And if you enjoyed the episode, I would be immensely grateful if you could share it with a friend and/or leave a kind and enthusiastic rating and review.
    Voir plus Voir moins
    1 h et 22 min
  • No Surrender with Hollis Peirce

    No Surrender with Hollis Peirce
    May 22 2025

    Today’s guest is the bright light, podcast host, historian, athlete, and disability advocate, Hollis Peirce. With Hollis, disability is neither a tragedy nor a motivational speech. He offers a refreshing, real, and uplifting take on living with muscular dystrophy.

    Early on, a doctor told Hollis’s mother that her child would suffer from an “inability to thrive.” Instead, he developed what the experts might call, a lifelong case of thriving.

    In our all-dressed conversation, Hollis talks about everything—why it’s a waste of energy to get too hung up on language, what it’s like to lose your best friends to a less forgiving version of your condition (long live Dino and the No Surrenders), how he confronted his own ableism when faced with the choice between six months of palliative car or a ventilator to help him breathe. (“I picked the vent! Otherwise, my sister would have killed me!)

    My favourite part was our impromptu discussion on mortality, complete with dark humour and a sense of wonder. We also totally nailed the listener question: I Can’t Accept My Disability and I Feel Like Nobody Around Me Understands. Don’t worry, we banish the phrase, “look on the bright side.” And yet, as Hollis always says, If you’re alive you can thrive.

    (Erica: But thriving doesn’t have to be a pull-up and a PhD!)

    Thank you, Hollis for this dreamy interview—the perfect episode for our inaugural YouTube video! Everybody, make sure to check out Hollis’s show—Twenty-First Century Disability—which explores the transformative power of embracing disability in our modern times.

    Twenty-First Century Disability on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Follow the show on Instagramand Facebook.

    Follow Erica on Facebook or Instagram or check out her website at ericajschmidt.com. You can also make her day by sending her a listener question to any of these places. (Full shownotes at ericajschmidt.com/podcast/no-surrender-with-hollis-peirce)
    Voir plus Voir moins
    Moins d'une minute

Ce que les auditeurs disent de This Is Your Strange and Beautiful Life

Moyenne des évaluations de clients

Évaluations – Cliquez sur les onglets pour changer la source des évaluations.

Évaluations sur Audible.ca

Évaluations sur Amazon.ca
Il n'y a pas encore de critiques pour ce titre.