The Extra+Ordinary Podcast is Launching in 2023!
get notified when episode 1 goes live
Welcome to Extra+Ordinary
The Extra+Ordinary podcast project tells the stories of ordinary people doing a little extra in the world. Their extraordinary efforts changed lives—and nations—in ways big and small. Yet most of their names and stories are little-known.
My own personal anti-despair program
When the Supreme Court gave its decision in Dobbs v Jackson, in June of 2022, I screamed in my car, I attacked overgrown branches in my yard with big sharp tools, I made donations. None of that gave me an ounce of relief or hope.
What helped me cope with the rage and grief was a book that posed this reflection: How often have things seemed hopeless, even apocalyptic—apartheid or Jim Crow, women’s suffrage, nuclear proliferation, acid rain, marriage inequality, dictatorships—only to transform, to crumble like the Berlin Wall, revealing a clearer, brighter future?
The answer: Over and over. And sometimes the smallest thing, like a spur-of-the-moment Facebook post, become something momentous, like the Women’s March.
This is the perspective I gained from Hope in the Dark, by Rebeca Solnit. She says we need a rosary, a sutra, of names and stories that remind us of our strength.
This is my contribution to giving us that sutra.
Who are we?
My name is Carolyn, and I’ll be (wo)manning this newsletter. and I’ve been telling stories my whole life. It started out as forcing my cousins to act in my plays at family gatherings, but it became my life. I’ve published poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and radio work, and worked for many nonprofit or social-purpose organizations, including Upworthy, whose name still appears on my professional Facebook page.
My collaborator, Jennifer Shin Bassett, is a musician, writer, and podcast producer. She’s the founder of Big Din Productions, an award-winning podcast production company that's worked on projects with iHeartMedia, Hello Sunshine, the LA Times Studio, Motherly Media, HarperCollins, and more. Check out Big Din’s newsletter here!
Not headlines, history
So we welcome you to Extra+Ordinary, Season 1: the Fight for Reproductive Justice.
Right now our earliest story comes from the 1960s, and our most recent is, well, still ongoing! You’ll meet people like:
a plucky Parisian singer-turned-contraception-smuggler
an evangelical Christian who made a career providing abortions
a college activist changing her state’s laws
To keep with the things that are happening each week in our country, check out Jessica Valenti’s Abortion, Every Day newsletter.
And when the news makes you start hyperventilating, come back here and remember that anything is possible.
Which means: Justice is possible. Change is possible. Victory is possible. But only if we refuse to give up.
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