Yarn Storytelling with Ryan & Jasmine

This episode was recorded live at Avid Kitchen & Garden (Avid Reader Bookshop) in West End, on January 21st, 2018. Hosts Ryan Sim and Jasmine Fairbairn are joined by very special guest Zac Grosbard in our first ever live podcast. The three share their summertime stories, ranging from Jas's first date, Ryan's summer job working for Blink 182, and Zac's recent marriage! We also answer questions from the audience about Yarn and the art of live storytelling.

This is a very special mini-episode we recorded a couple of days before Christmas! That's right! That's how long it's taken to find the free time to put this one out! Join Jasmine and Ryan on their drive from Brisbane up to the Sunshine Coast of Queensland as they tell each other about their fondest memories of The Road. It's like Kerouac meets the movie, Road Trip.

We play you a live recorded story from award winning astrophysicist Dr. Tamara Davis and talk about how big everything is and how tiny we are. Jasmine shares a story about working for a dinosaur museum in Canada (and does a rap about dinosaurs) and Ryan explains his formative years selling CDs in a chain store. We also talk about the ocean a little bit, and a very special guest pops in to say hi!

In the fourth and final installment of our Between The Lines series, hosts Ryan Sim and Jasmine Fairbairn are joined by writer and editor Jerath Head to talk about fighting, aggression, and toxic masculinity.

Alex Philp joins your hosts Ryan Sim and Jasmine Fairbairn to discuss, well, her body. More specifically, about how the one time her body fell in line with her mind and her internal feelings, it was the worst thing for her. We talk Thailand, divorce, Instagram, and cake. Alex is a screenwriter and is currently completing her PhD at Queensland University of Technology.

In part two of our Between The Lines series, actor and comedian Jordan Kadell tells us a story from her early twenties. We discuss the pros and cons of of learning to become an adult in a sub-culture (in Jordan's case, the local theatre scene), the ways in which we look up to people, and how those dynamics might change with time.

Following on from our Yarn Storytelling event at Brisbane Writers' Festival, we bring you part one of our 'Between The Lines' series. We'll be speaking to the four writers who spoke at Between The Lines and delving deeper into their stories (since we were unable to record them for you!). Grace McCarter returns to the podcast with a story about growing up, toxic friendships, and isolation. *Content note: there's a discussion about sexual violence in this episode.

We hear two amazing stories about the intensity of survival and the mundanity of hospitals in this episode. Hosts Ryan and Jasmine are joined by Jacob Lingard (@jacoblingarddd) who tells them about having to face his own mortality in his early twenties. This discussion is informed by our feature story this week, which comes from documentary film-maker Amelia Paxman (@paxmee). Told at our Dumb Luck event in February, 2017, Amelia's story is about being shielded from the severity of certain health issues, and skipping sports day.

Ryan and Jasmine talk about flaking on social commitments, how to communicate with your significant-others' parents, and how to raise your children so they become healthy-minded adults. We also fawn over a few of our local comedy-crushes. Our featured story comes from Yarn regular, Zac Grosbard. It was told at our event Dumb Luck at Black Bear Lodge, earlier in 2017. It's about Israel and backgammon.

Writer and true angel, Grace McCarter (@gracemccarter), joins Ryan and Jasmine to discuss all things to do with being and not being a parent. Our feature story is one to yank on those heartstrings from established Brisbane author, Christopher Currie (Clancy Of The Undertow, @furioushorses). We tell a couple of lies about when this one was intended to come out - apologies for the delay, we had a big event last week and this one had to wait. We think it's worth the wait.

Our feature story this episode is from comic/musician/all-round champion Michelle Azevedo (@shellyveeds) & it's quite a heavy investigation of mental health, family dynamics & being displaced. We invited guest Stephen Smith (@styvensmythe) to come and talk around some of the themes of Michelle's story and for some reason we end up talking about food a lot.

On our first, kind of echoey episode, we talk about spooky things. Our feature story comes from Will Benson, recorded at our event "INSOMNIA: Stories To Keep You Up At Night" at Black Bear Lodge in May of 2017.