Fireside with Blair Hodges

Relationscapes: MINI EPISODE, “The Sitcomification of Holly Brown”

Holly Brown loves TV sitcoms. Growing up, her own family looked like the prototype for must-see TV: a charismatic dad who worked on a top sitcom in Hollywood, siblings an

Relationscapes: “The Slow-Motion Inevitability of Becoming Yourself,” with Kevin James Thornton

“Relationscapes” is the current podcast by Fireside host Blair Hodges. Enjoy this sample episode! Be sure to subscribe directly to Relationscapes now, because this episod

S’mores (Bonus Episode)—Tara Boyce on Hope

Tara Boyce joins us to reconsider Tom Whyman’s episode about “hope.” Is Tom too hopeful? Transcript at our website, firesidepod.org/episodes/boyce. Buy the book and ot

Joy, with Ross Gay

Ross Gay is a New York Times bestselling author of essays and poetry. His latest book is ‘Inciting Joy,’ which argues that “joy is something like what we feel like when w

Invisible, with Meghan O’Rourke

Meghan O'Rourke is a citizen of what she calls the invisible kingdom. Anyone can become a citizen. Even you. All you need is a debilitating chronic illness that doctors c

Transitions, with Susan Stryker

When she was born, Susan Stryker’s parents thought they were welcoming a baby boy. She knew they were wrong by the time she was five years old, but it took decades to let

Mission, with Kathryn Gin Lum

Race and religion have been intertwined throughout American history. Christians believed they could detect so-called “heathen” unbelief by the color of someone’s skin or

Shell Play, with Toni Jensen

Toni Jensen grew up around guns. As a girl, she learned to shoot birds in rural Iowa with her father. As an adult, she’s had guns waved in her face near Standing Rock, fe

Hope, with Tom Whyman

When Tom Whyman started thinking about becoming a father, he worried. Would he and his partner be able to make a living to support a child? What about political upheaval

The Fire, with Danté Stewart

Coming up out of the waters of baptism at a new white Christian church, Danté Stewart envisioned leaving his blackness behind, washing away his boyhood Black Pentecostal

Heritage, with Masha Rumer

Masha Rumer immigrated to the United States from the former Soviet Union when she was thirteen. At first, her nationality made her self-conscious; she wanted to blend in

Monsters, with David Livingstone Smith

David Livingstone Smith has studied dehumanization for decades. He's spent a lot of time researching horrific genocides, lynching, massacres, and other brutalities. Real

Voices, with Jeff Chu

When Rachel Held Evans unexpectedly died in 2019, the thirty-seven-year-old Christian writer left behind a husband and two young children, as well as an unfinished book m

Margins, with Fatimah Salleh and Margaret Olsen Hemming

It’s been said that, like the Bible, there are few women in the Book of Mormon. And that’s true, in one sense. But in another, women are everywhere there. Fatimah Salleh

The Books, with Vanessa Zoltan

What happens if we approach some of our favorite books with a similar kind of devotion and attentive reading religious communities bring to their scripture? Vanessa Zolta

Civility, with Alex Zamalin

In his book Against Civility: The Hidden Racism in our Obsession with Civility, Alex Zamalin traces the history of civility from its deployment against African slaves, th

Hidden, with Ayala Fader

Ultra-Orthodox Jews structure every aspect of their lives around their religion. But those who come to doubt their beliefs, or who question various practices and rituals,

S’mores (Bonus Episode)—Let’s Talk, with Anna Sale

Anna Sale says a loss of faith in social institutions has left people seeking alternative ways of celebrating, mourning, and connecting. At a fractured and disconnected m

Options, with Taylor Petrey

Is human gender and sexuality fixed and binary, or malleable and multi-various? Taylor Petrey discusses the fascinating twists and turns in Latter-day Saint thought on th

Home, with Lauren Sandler

Lauren Sandler was a journalist covering homelessness in New York City when she met Camilla, a woman without a home who didn’t seem to fit the homeless stereotype at all.