Wise Not Withered

Walk-in-the-Park Pageant Queen - CASSANDRA

Welcome to the Wise Not Withered Podcast Season 2, the Character Showcase! This is Week 4. Today I am proud to highlight the Walk-in-the-Park Pageant Queen, Cassandra! She is a 65-year-old writer, blogger, mother, grandmother, former pageant queen, and celebrity from the fictional world of Filizuela.

Story Background

The writer for this story is the lovely Izhar, from the Philippines. The illustrator was originally from Venezuela, but unfortunately she was going through some very hard times in her country, and she understandably had to withdraw her participation. Izhar and I decided to keep the name of the country though, "Filizuela", which is a combination of the Philippines and Venezuela.

My original idea for this character was simply that she was a "Walk-in-the-Park Romantic", who meets a nice man on her walks in the park. That's all! Izhar really took it to the next level. The story begins with an interview on a talk show, where we learn about Cassandra's extensive background and first claims to fame. She was almost crowned Miss Universe forty-three years prior to the start of the story, making history not just for the title but also for a catastrophic accident where she fell on stage and irreparably damaged her foot. Ashamed to leave the house right after the incident, she turned to writing, though eventually also public speaking, and she briefly ran a custom shoe-making company.

Takeaways from the Story "Renewed"

When Izhar and I first came up with ALL of these ideas for Cassandra's background, I almost thought it would be too much, but one of the points of this project is to showcase the adventures that older women still have into their older years. Cassandra is sixty-five, so it makes sense that she's been through a lot in six and a half decades! Not every character in the Wise Not Withered project has a fully fleshed out background that's in the story, but when we decided to include an interview at the beginning, it seemed fitting to briefly mention a lot of stuff that she's already gone through.

In the interview at the beginning of the story, we mention many life challenges that she's faced and overcome, but the focus of the story is on her life now getting back into writing, and her budding romance with Sebastian, a fellow walker in the park. Her injured foot is part of her character, but just like her age, it's not the only defining characteristic of who she is.

The rest of the story is told in first person by Cassandra. When she first meets Sebastian, he doesn't speak much English, and Cassandra doesn't speak much Spanish. From the start Izhar and I wanted to include some comedy in their interactions, using a translator app to communicate. Since the story takes place in the year 2054, I wanted to include an older woman who uses technology on a daily basis, as I assume Izhar and I and others our age will be, even in a few decades. I wanted to show that Cassandra already knows how to use her phone and all of its apps, and not need the help of her daughter or granddaughter, since she would have grown up with it.

It was very important to me that we also show challenges that Cassandra faces in her new relationship, reference her past relationships, and show how it takes real, concerted effort to not fall into assumptions that your new partner will make the same mistakes as old ones. In the middle of the story, Sebastian lies to Cassandra about losing his job at a resto-bar. She has the opportunity then to come to terms with the fact that people can lie sometimes to people they love, to save their own reputation; she had to learn to forgive him and ultimately realize that his lie wasn't even about her. It was important that they specifically talk about being honest with each other, too.

Now a bit about the two artists behind Cassandra's story:

The story ends with a lovely beauty pageant that Cassandra puts on for other older women. One of the most magical parts in the story is when Cassandra walks around the stage near the end, to show the audience a real beauty queen walk, and Sebastian comes out to accompany her on the violin.

The illustrator I found for this character was Laura Mendoza, from El Salvador. I wanted to find someone who spoke Spanish, who could check the words and phrases that Izhar and I incorporated into the story, between Sebastian and Cassandra. I first found Laura on Behance, and I was really interested in her imaginative and colorful style.

Laura and Izhar both took some time to introduce themselves and talk about the work they did for the Wise Not Withered project. So without further ado, here's Laura!

from Laura Mendoza (illustrator)

"Hi, my name is Laura Mendoza, I am from El Salvador which is a very small  and beautiful country in Central America. I am an illustrator and graphic designer. I also teach at two universities here. I like traveling, get to know new people and places, illustrated books, create characters and their stories, and learn new things.

My life experiences and points of view become part of my creative process with which I develop several illustration and design projects. I draw since I was a child, and I keep doing it until now. I got more conscious about this with the pass of the time, because I understood that I wanted do this professionally. So, I started to learn different media, developing my drawing skills and getting a more organized creative approach.

For Cassandra's character, I tried to pay attention to the characteristics of a mature empowered woman, surrounded by a creative and artistic environment. A woman passionate about the art of writing and delighted by music. A fighter woman and excited about life.

I thought the project was different and very interesting for pursuing the identification of adult women as part of different situations, cultures, languages, and roles. For the fact of giving prominence to women of different ages who interact in diverse life situations and who get ahead in the different problems they may encounter and also, women that can become inspiring references for others."

Thank you to Laura for sharing with us, and now, here's Izhar!

Izhar Aloy's Message (writer)

"Hey guys, it's me! My name is Izhar and I'm from the Philippines. Today I'll be sharing to you my thoughts and experiences about the story of Cassandra. So first of all, I wanted to tell you about myself: I was the one who wrote the story—actually, me and Juliana wrote about the character Cassandra.

I thought it was hard for us to connect at first, knowing that we live in different countries: I'm from the Philippines and she's from America. But thanks to technology, we're able to connect anytime with each other! So it was not that hard to pull the story off, and it turned out to be very beautiful and inspiring.

I'm twenty-three years old, and I am a writer. I have been a professional writer for three years now. I know it is my job, but I don't want to call it a job. I'd love to call it a hobby! So writing is my hobby. It's definitely my go-to whenever I want to do something fun. I write novels, poems, songs—most of the times songs, because I'm actually a musician too.

By the way, English is not our mother tongue, not our first language, so I apologize if my English is not very good, but I will try my best to communicate! (laughs)

Ever since I was a kid, I loved writing. It's really one of the hardest questions to answer, like when people ask me when I started writing. I don't know, because I feel like I've been writing since I was a kid. I love reading novels, I love reading books: self-help, inspirational... My greatest influences are Sydney Sheldon, Robert Ladlum, Jane Austen, Daniel Steele, Sophie Kinsella—classic writers! I love reading novels, and I guess novels in general are the things that inspired me to become a writer myself.

So let's talk about the character. The character Cassandra is really, really beautiful. I wrote the story and then I gave it to Juliana and she edited it. So basically she did most of the work. (laughs) So when I read it, when she sent it back to me, I literally cried. The story is just so beautiful, and the character was so amazing. It was more beautiful than what I hoped it would be, like seriously. It [turned out to be] such an amazing project.

What inspired me to write about the character honestly was this project itself, the Wise Not Withered project. First of all, I wanted to say thank you Juliana for building this great project: it's such an amazing movement to empower women all over the world. There was actually a time when I was writing the story that I didn't know what's next. I was completely mental blocked, and I didn't know what to write next. I don't know what I wanted the character to be, what will happen in the story... I went to the Wise Not Withered project website again, and I refreshed myself with the mission and the vision of this project.

Amazingly, it did not just help me to get through the story, to finish the story. It also reminded me that I should write with a purpose. Purely entertainment is good, but I should be more than that. I should be a woman of character, a woman who writes with a purpose. Not just write in general, if that makes any sense. So I was so happy that I became part of this project.

Maybe you're wondering why I inserted beauty pageants in the story. I'm from the Philippines, and if you know someone who is a Filipino, you would know that Filipinos are so into pageantry. I don't know, there's just something about pageants that makes us feel excited, and connected. You know that feeling when you have someone who represents your country, represents your place if it's a local pageant—it's just amazing.

The best part is watching the Q&A's, the question-and-answer portion of the pageant, because that's when we really learn from the inspirational answers of the women in the pageant. Here in the Philippines, we like to use their famous lines in our every day expressions. I know it sounds crazy, but we do! (laughs)

What lessons do I hope readers will take from Cassandra's story "Renewed"? There's actually a lot. Hopefully readers will be able to get a lot of lessons and takeaways from the story. But maybe if there's one lesson that I wanted them to learn is that... To never be afraid to fail. Failure is natural. We always fail, so let's not be afraid to make mistakes, as long as we learn to get back up, and to learn from that experience, and to actually use that learning to be an empowered woman. Be renewed, start anew, and to continue life!

What I love about her the most is that she's not afraid to fail. Or maybe she was at first. But she later on realizes that when we have a lot of downs in life, that's when we are able to get up! And also, that makes us more patient to other people. We will also learn about forgiveness in the story. I feel like that's the very reason why she was able to forgive—the story would hopefully teach us that patience is a wonderful thing. When we have failed a million times, we will be patient to other people who we see face the same troubles and the same challenges that we have had in the past.

And also, hopefully the people would be able to view life in a different perspective—that's also another takeaway I hope people would get from the story. I read once that a life that you have lived for yourself alone is a life not worth living. That's a quote from one of my favorite local writers. When I designed the story of Cassandra, I wanted her to be inspiring. It was not selfish! She was old and she realized that at the end of the day, at the end of your life, when you look back, it's not that fun if you purely lived for yourself, and not for other people. When you die, what do you get? It's good when you look back over the years, and you see that you have lived a life that you shared with other people. You have lived a life that inspired many people. You have lived a life helping others, being an inspiration, loving and being supported, not just living for yourself.

Hopefully this is a great message, especially for young girls, young ladies. We should hope to be someone inspiring, someone worthy to look [up to]. Not just someone who achieved the goals, achieve that, achieve this...

Lastly, why did I join the Wise Not Withered project in the first place? I live in the Philippines, and we have such a very patriarchal society. I tend to get less respect than anyone else, because I'm a woman, at least from my experience. When I discovered about this project, when I met Juliana, when I knew about this project, I was so excited. I was a yes man immediately when I saw this. (laughs) This is where I want to be part of. This project is what I wanted to do.

This project reminded me that I'm not just writing, I should write with a purpose. I should write to inspire other people. Being involved in this project makes me feel that way, that I am writing with a purpose, makes me feel like for once in my life, for a very rare moment in my life, I was able to connect to other parts of the world and actually be an inspiration hopefully, especially to young girls. To never be afraid, be yourself, to never be afraid to achieve your dreams, to fail, and to be a more empowered woman. We are all deserving of love, we are all deserving of respect, whether we are a girl or a boy.

I am so excited, like really really excited for you guys to check out the story. I think a sweet, mature, grounded voice, but at the same time patient. Really, really sweet! I think that's the kind of voice quality that I want the character Cassandra to have for the voice-over. I'm so excited for this project to be done, to be completely done. I know it's going to be a really, really great success! Thanks to you, Juliana! I love you guys so much! Bye!"

To end the episode, I will read a short excerpt from the story "Renewed":

I got up from my bench and began to slowly walk toward the path home, when I came across a piece of folded paper on the ground. I picked it up. It must have fallen from someone’s pocket because it was folded up, a bit haphazardly but freshly dropped with the yellow color of the pages still untarnished. I unfolded the paper and stared at the words for a second, realizing it was written in Spanish. I tucked it inside my bag.

I always found writing of others so intriguing. Decades ago when Olivia was a pre-teen, we would go to the craft store and get journals and gel pens and write in our diaries together. Sometimes we’d share our entries, but most often not. I knew that Olivia still kept a daily journal; I had been writing in a journal for years too, and kept a somewhat inconsistent blog. Blogging was still pretty new to me, so I hadn’t put too much of an effort into it yet.

When I got home, I took out the paper again and gazed at it, intrigued by the arrangement of short lines. It looked like it could be a poem, though it could have also been a grocery list for all I knew!

When I arrived home, my granddaughter Sheen greeted me, “How’s your walk, Mamita?”

“It was fine. The sun was extravagant today. And,” I pulled out the paper from my bag and held it up, “I found something really interesting!”

“Oh, what’s that?” Sheen asked suspiciously.

“It’s in Spanish,” I told her with a smile, then suddenly got an idea, “I could use my translator app for this!”

I opened the app on my phone and checked the words out, line by line. And man, what did I find? A poem. A love poem. I grabbed a notepad and rewrote it all in English.

“The sun rises around the trees in bloom

The birds fly and my beautiful queen...

She arrives, radiant as always”

“The writer’s a natural poet, Mamita,” Sheen commented.

“Maybe he’s writing this for a woman he loves,” I concluded.

“What makes you think that it’s a ‘he’?” Sheen teased me.

“I don’t know, I just feel it.”

I spent the rest of my day keeping myself busy with house chores, while the paper and the poem buzzed around in my mind. I couldn’t help but wonder what the words were about, or who it was written by. The person who wrote the poem seemed so inspired to write. Inspiration... Something that had been lacking in my life for the past few years.

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Stay tuned for more showcases of the Wise Not Withered characters, releasing every Sunday until end of April, 2020!

Traveling Model - HUAN LING

Welcome to the Wise Not Withered Podcast, Season 2: the Character Showcase! Today I will be talking about Huan Ling, the 96-year-old Traveling Model. I am currently battling a particularly intense flu and will most likely go to sleep right after recording this, so please bear with my sniffly, congested voice today.

The last two weeks featured wise women with complex, emotional stories. One of the great things about this project is that there is so much variety! Huan Ling's story is very light-hearted and simple, but it still does a great job showing how rich and wonderful one's life becomes the more time goes by.

I actually found the illustrator first for this character. Suyu Chen was one of the very first artists I recruited about a year ago, and I honestly can't remember how I found her. She was the first person to reply to my cold email agreeing to join the Wise Not Withered artist team! Suyu tried out lots of different styles, from hand-drawn to image collage to digital graphic design. We ultimately went with her digital, colorful, vivacious, and angular illustrations.

Nicole Page was the writer for Huan Ling's story. I found her on Instagram, using some kind of "travel" hashtag, and she was one of about forty women that I had messaged that day, inviting them to write a story about a Traveling Model. I really loved the vibe I got from her page, called "Beautiful Soul Nicole", and I honestly thought that maybe she'd be too cool to answer me! So I was thrilled when I received a response from her. I heard back from only two people regarding this character, so it was definitely one of my more stamina-and-character-building cold-email-sending days.

The story Nicole wrote is absolutely endearing and very charming! I knew I wanted the Traveling Model story to be about a fashionable grandmother and her photographer grandson, but it wasn't until I was emailing Nicole back about the story that the entire outline just poured out of me. She had asked about the story I envisioned, and this is what I came up with as I was answering her:

Key desired plot points: Establishment and development of grandmother-grandson relationship.

1) When Grandson is born, Main Character (Grandma) relives the thrill of having a baby again, in addition to becoming a grand-mother and accepting another view of her own daughter and herself.

2) Grandson grows up, idolizing his grandmother, a supermodel. Establish bits of their personalities.

3) Grandson hits a pivotal turning point in his life (high school graduation, or first romantic relationship break-up, first job, or even in early teen years with hormonal mood swings, etc.) and stops talking to Grandma as much.

4) Grandson discovers love for photography in college, reaches out to grandma again since she is still a model and in photo business (I also envisioned Grandma being the former CEO of Instagram or a fictional equivalent of a high-tech multi-billion dollar social media company, maybe retiring before Grandson was born). They connect as adults for the first time, discussing careers, life events, etc.

5) Grandma invites Grandson to tour with her to the next three locations she’ll be modeling. He takes professional photos of her at her fashion shows as well as selfies together.

The story that Nicole came up with is told like a theater screenplay, mostly dialogue with bits of third-person narration in between each section. Like I said at the beginning of this episode, it's been so much fun to see the wide variety of writing styles that these women brought to the table.

We chose the name Huan Ling to reflect Suyu's Taiwanese heritage, and Kevin as the grandson's name, to reflect Nicole's American heritage. Both Suyu and Nicole have extensive histories when it comes to traveling the world: Nicole was born in North Carolina, moved to New Hampshire, then to New York, studied abroad in Russia and visited the UK, France, and Italy. She also went to Peru for shamanism, and now she lives in Ecuador! Nicole has an inspiring story of her journey into yoga and healing herself from anxiety and addiction. She wrote a book called "Bite-Size Yoga: A Better Way to Beat Burnout". Check it out on Amazon here!

Suyu grew up in Taiwan, has traveled to Japan, Singapore, Palau, Malaysia, Dubai, Amsterdam, Italy, China, Hong Kong, Seattle, and New York, and she's lived in England, Canada, and now Iceland. Suyu wanted to fight against the stereotype that models are shallow and brainless and only care about appearances. I think we all succeeded in allowing that idea shine through.

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Stay tuned for more Wise Not Withered character showcases, releasing every Sunday until the end of April, 2020!

Magical Librarian - BASIRA

Welcome to the Wise Not Withered Podcast, Season 2: The Character Showcase! This is Week 2. Today I am thrilled to exhibit Basira, a seventy-year-old Pakistani woman who manages a library. Basira lost her husband and son ten years prior to the beginning of the story, and she has become very jaded, bitter, and cold. At the library where she works, she discovers a mysterious book that becomes a portal to a magical world. In this storybook land, Basira meets a little girl who helps her through her journey of love, grief, and connecting to and nurturing her inner child.

The writer who chose this character, Noor Pinna from New York, beautifully wove in really nice and specific details from her Pakistani heritage into what she wrote. The whole canvas of imagery and feel of the story comes entirely from Noor, from Basira's brightly colored shalwar kameez and hijab, her meals of chai and scrambled eggs, chicken and curry with naan, to the environmental scenery details in the storybook land (like the babul tree and river dolphin), and Basira's Islamic faith and Urdu prayer.

The story is both heart-breaking and heart-warming. I wanted a balanced mixture of sweet and sad; Noor and I both contributed so many tender and delicate moments, as well as raw, emotional parts. When I first got the idea for the Magical Librarian, I wasn't sure if I wanted to explicitly say how her family had passed away. But when Noor wrote about a suicide bombing as the cause, it felt right to keep it in the story. That kind of tragedy is unfortunately more common in countries like Pakistan, and it felt important to include, to show how these catastrophic events affect regular people who are just trying to live their lives, with pure hearts and good intentions.

The description that Noor wrote of the last day Basira was with her family absolutely broke my heart. The suicide bombing happened while Basira was away from them, getting some mango kulfi, a dense and creamy frozen dairy dessert, for herself and her son. The juxtaposition of light-heartedness and pure joy of enjoying a sweet treat with the jarring event that was the bombing made the tragedy hit even harder.

I really cried when I first read that scene. It is a very important part of the story, and highlights a key underlying lesson of acceptance of the simultaneous existence of joy and grief. Even when feeling great sorrow and grief, one can still have happy moments as well, and that's okay. The older we get, and the more we experience, the more likely we are to experience both joy and pain to very deep levels.

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I really loved the prayer that Noor wrote for Basira.

"بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ / In the Name of Allah, the All-merciful, the All-compassionate
اللَّهُمَّ مَوْلايَ / O Allah! O my Protector!
اللَّهُمَّ عَظُمَ بَلائِي / O Allah, my tribulation is tremendous,
لَهِي وَرَبِّي مَن لِّي غَيْرُكَ أَسْألُهُ كَشْفَ ضُرِّي وَالْنَّظَرَ فِي أَمْرِي! / My God and my Lord! Have I any but You from whom
to ask removal of my affliction and regard for my affairs!
وَّعَلَيَّ فِي جَمِيعِ الأُمُورِ عَطُوفاً / And be gracious to me in all that I do!"

I wanted to include as many parts of people's cultures into each story as we could, and it feels really special to have the beautiful Urdu letters in the text. Portraying a Muslim woman and her Islamic faith in a positive light also was really important to include. I feel that ultimately Basira's connection to her inner child and her faith is what helped her through the hard times.

The connection to the little girl—who turns out to be herself, her own inner little girl—was the core concept that I came up with from the start. Noor did a wonderful job of telling the story like a stroll down memory lane: Basira recognizes the places that they travel to because she herself had been there decades earlier as she was growing up.

The inclusion of the child in the story is a reminder that there is still a child within each of us, and connecting to and understanding our inner child can help us find peace. At the beginning of the story, we describe a list of people in Basira's life that she is unhappy with:

"The excessively friendly young man Ahmed who managed the library with her… The women her age who bothered her while she was busy shelving books, whining about not knowing what novel to pick up next… Her older brother Afshad who never called anymore…"

In the ending, we include a similar list of people who surround her, except this time, after the list, it is implied that she is focusing on rekindling and appreciating those connections, and accepting love and joy into her life again. The last illustration is of Basira reading a storybook, surrounded by a group of children. It's a visual epilogue of sorts, showing that Basira will start to connect more with the children in her community.

Our illustrator for Basira was Monica Meius from Estonia, who's currently living in Finland. I am positively delighted by the illustrations that Monica made for Basira's story. I think she captured the characters perfectly, and the bright colors and overall design is very much like a storybook itself.

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I found Noor on Instagram by searching some kind of poetry hashtag, and I really liked the content she had. Seeing that she is a therapist and a mindset coach, it wasn't surprising that she was interested in and capable of writing about a character who goes through very hard times and comes out stronger.

Noor took some time to answer a few questions that I had about herself and her background, main takeaways from Basira's story, and her experience being part of the Wise Not Withered project. So, here's Noor!

"Hi! My name is Noor Pinna. I'm a licensed mental health therapist, and a transformation mindset coach. I work with women over twenty-five who are willing to work with me on overcoming their shame, creating boundaries, and creating uniquely tailored self-care plans so that they can be leaders in their own universe. I really enjoy hiking, being in nature, writing poetry, and having potluck with diverse cultural foods.

Some of the main takeaways that I wanted people to have from the story is that grief varies, and it's not linear. You can heal from many different resources, as long as you are [willing and able to] open that door a little bit for that light to come in, so that you can receive the benefits and the support of other people. But it has to start with you.

The other thing that I wanted people to take away from the story was that, you know, there's a stereotype that women in my culture are submissive, and are not able to have any say, or they can't have businesses or things like that. And in this story, I really wanted to show that regardless of your age, a woman in my culture can have a job, is a contribution, and can provide support and be an empowering female for others, and still chase after her dreams.

[The Wise Not Withered project] is something that I really enjoyed. It was something new. It was all about empowering females from all different types of cultures, backgrounds, and age. I thought this was a unique thing for women of all ages—adolescents, young girls, young women—to be able to say hey, these are really strong female characters. They're providing me a lesson, a resource, an inspiration. There's nothing better than to offer more insight and more empowerment. Because we have to, as a community, lift [one another] up, we have to empower women together, and not tear each other down. And this is what I felt like the essence of this project was: we were lifting women together, as well as involving other characters that were male in the process of this project."

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Stay tuned for more showcases of the Wise Not Withered characters, releasing every Sunday until the end of April, 2020!

Retired Cyborg Engineer - NERO

Welcome to the Wise Not Withered Podcast, Season 2! Over the next 25 weeks, I will be showcasing each of the characters in the Wise Not Withered project. I decided to do this showcase right now because it has been exactly one year since I sent my first cold emails to recruit writers and illustrators for the project. All twenty-five characters have at least a story draft and/or one or two illustrations done. A handful of the characters have a complete story AND complete set of illustrations, and today’s character is one of them!

“Trust and Betrayal” is a story written by Julie from Nigeria. It’s about a retired cyborg engineer named Nero, whose calm evening is interrupted by two droids that urgently need her to travel to the MTA, or Multinational Technology Authority complex, which she herself had designed and built decades prior alongside Master Juan, leader of the droids. Once she returns, she finds Master Juan in critical condition. He warns that her humanoid son Oliver plans to destroy all of humanity, though we later find out who the real antagonist is…

In just five pages, Julie created an entire world from scratch, launching readers into the action straight away, including details that brilliantly developed the backstory while also propelling the current story forward. As someone that’s not too familiar with science fiction, I didn’t have that many ideas about the cyborg story at the beginning. I knew that in terms of character, I wanted her to have been a cyborg for most of her life, after a near-fatal accident that happened when she was a teenager. I wanted her to be incredibly smart and resourceful, but also a bit slow-witted; kind and generous, but sometimes too much so!

Julie did an amazing job of incorporating all of those traits and writing a character that was intelligent but gullible, strong and authoritative but also soft. Julie created the rest of the characters: Master Juan (leader of the droids), Oliver (Nero’s ambitious humanoid son), Doctor Eddie (the mechanic who had worked on Nero after her accident; some unresolved romantic tension included!), and Majors Xi and Li (high-ranking officials that also work at MTA).

When I found Julie on Instagram, I was intrigued by the beautiful imagery and syntax in her poems. I was honestly surprised when she picked the cyborg character as her top choice to write about, since I hadn’t seen anything remotely related to sci-fi on her page. But I trusted, and she delivered! I was absolutely blown away by the descriptions of the MTA complex, and a variety of different technological devices.

“Now, to the normal eye, Captain Nero’s bed was simply for rest. This was not the case, however, for just like the rest of MTA, there was more to the bed than meets the eye. Underneath at the right edge was a switch which converted the bed to a gurney table the moment she flicked it. Chromium wound up around Master Juan until it formed a cocoon: secure but not too tight. This chromium served as a body scan and was connected to Nero’s computer which would help her determine the problem spots in her friend’s body before she could push for a cure. Approaching footsteps made her whip her head around.”

Make sure to check out Julie’s Instagram page!

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The illustrator for Nero is Carolina from Mexico. I also found her on Instagram, and was very interested in her sketchy, somewhat gritty, very detailed illustrations. She did a wonderful job creating the look of Nero, with her gray afro, pink scarf, and robotic body parts. Carolina actually made a few illustrations for the look of her hair. While I preferred the gray afro and ultimately decided to stick with that look for the rest of the illustrations, I really liked these pink cornrows as well!

Please check out more of Carolina’s work on her Instagram page!

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Julie graciously took some time to introduce herself and tell us a bit about her background and interests. So without further ado, here is Julie!

“My name is Julie Onoh from Nigeria. I’m an author and poet. I’m really passionate about the girl child and women’s rights, and this came due to my experience growing up here in my society. Women do face a lot of discrimination; although lucky for me I come from a wonderful family. I have wonderful parents who have never been partial to both sexes; among their children they shared love. There was nothing like, ‘Oh, the boy is more important than the girl’ and all that. I’m so happy to have that kind of background.

I’ve always loved books. Sometimes I like to think I was born with an unseen book in my hands. I’ve always been drawn to books, from an early age. I love stories, reading, and then creating something from those thoughts rolling around in my head. I have an overactive imagination, you see.

But I want to say I [didn’t take] writing seriously until 2017. I had to do some soul-searching, and then while reading the Bible, there was a scripture spoke to me. God would bless the work of my hands. I had to do an inward search, you know, like what works? What exactly works? And my books were just staring at me. (laughs) This is you, Julie. I have not looked back since then!

To be honest, I read a lot of genres. I enjoy reading the books of Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Buchi Emeceta, Maya Angelou, Julie Garwood, Danielle Steel, Chimamanda Adichie, Lesley Pearse, Rupe Kaur, George R.R. Martin, Titilope Sonuga… You know, I could go on and on. So long as the plot is well-written, you’ve got me hooked!

Nero!! Okay, as a writer, I send submissions for different competitions that come up. And one of such cases was the Drucker Challenge, where we wrote about the impact of artificial intelligence in our world. And I was really fascinated while doing research on it, and I got to discover the advancements we’ve actually made. I think getting to watch movies like Star Trek, you know, they forge thoughts in my mind. When the Wise Not Withered project came up, I was instantly drawn to the cyborg character. Remember I told you I have an overactive imagination, yeah. (laughs) Nero is the result of what I was researching on the AI essay!

Our illustrator is Mexican, so we tried to infuse our roots, you know: the Nigerian and Mexican mix into the story, while being careful not to allow it detract from it. And while creating the story, initially Oliver was supposed to be the villain. But I realized I was feeding into this irrational fear of humanoids that we seem to have, and that made me change the narrative.”

I also asked Julie about what kinds of qualities she’d want in a voice actress and also the music for the story.

“Oh yeah, I want a voice actress whose voice is bold and assertive. As you can see, Nero is not a simple nilly; it should reflect in her voice too! Music… Definitely not blues. (laughs) I think I see Nero as this loud, fast-tempo music lover. She probably loves hard rock, R&B, Afro beats, that kind of thing… Something with a swing to it!”

And finally, I asked Julie about her experience working on the project, and any other parting words she had.

“The Wise Not Withered project is a wonderful one, and I’m grateful to God for placing such an idea in Juliana Russell. I mean, who says older women can’t be cool too? So we’re trying to change that narrative where the young ones view the elderly as weak and useless, and I’m hoping we can shift that perspective. Soon, we’ll have more representation of the elderly in media, hopefully. I’m just blessed to be part of this project!

It was nice participating in this project. I got to meet lots of people from different areas of the world. I commend the organizer of this project for putting up something this huge, and getting folks all over the world to connect with each other. We got to know each other a bit more, exchange ideas… It has been an eye-opening experience for me, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything else. So, I’m grateful, I learned… IT’s been wonderful! Thank you, Wise Not Withered family! *mwah* (laughs)”

—

Stay tuned for more showcases of the Wise Not Withered characters, releasing every Sunday until the end of April, 2020!

Episode 10.2 - Zoë Kors (followup)

Thanks for listening to another episode of the Wise Not Withered Podcast. This is the last episode in Season 1: part two with Zoë Kors. Check out wisenotwithered.com for partial transcripts and more! And please go to zoekors.com to see what Zoë has been up to! :)

Episode 10.1 - Zoë Kors

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Wise Not Withered Podcast. This episode will be Part 1 of the last episode of Season 1. Next time we'll hear from Zoë Kors again, as she was yet another person whom I interviewed twice, realizing there was a lot more that I wanted to ask her about. Stay tuned! :)

Episode 9 - Scarlett Maebh

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Wise Not Withered Podcast. This week I am sharing my two-part interview with Scarlett Maebh. I met Scarlett at a women's retreat almost two years ago. She and next week's guest were two of the activity leaders at the retreat, and they led extremely powerful and healing rituals with our small group. I was thrilled when Scarlett agreed to be interviewed, and I hope you feel inspired by her story.

If you've listened to other episodes in my Podcast, you're already aware that we do go pretty deep and raw while discussing the struggles and triumphs in the stories of these wise, brave women. Scarlett's story, while not disclosing particular details of events, does include retelling of domestic violence and sexual assault. She also goes into how she worked through and healed her trauma, and overall I believe her story is inspiring above anything else.

For a partial yet still quite extensive transcript of this episode, please visit my website, wisenotwithered.com, and go to instagram.com/wisenotwithered for short, quotable and shareable excerpts from Scarlett as well as all of the other wise women who I've interviewed.

Episode 8 - Marti McGuirk

Welcome to the next episode of the Wise Not Withered Podcast! I had the opportunity to speak with Mrs. McGuirk, who was my counselor in high school ten years ago.

On her relationship with her mother: “I love her, and I have enormous respect for her, but sometimes I might have wished she could’ve just you know, not been quite so involved in everything [while I was growing up]. … I would say now, it’s good. Being adults, it’s easier to see where she’s coming from. Versus when I was 16, 17, 18, I was like ‘Why are you all up in my business?’ And now I’m like ‘Oh okay, I understand how that works!’ I would say now, we’re pretty close, which is pretty cool.”

On something she’s learned from being a counselor over the last twelve years: “First of all, I think I’ve learned… The older I get? Or if it’s just how much the generations change. Kids’ lives are so much harder than it was five years ago, ten years ago, twenty years ago. Whether it’s ‘you need to be in this, that, or the other activity’, or ‘you have to maintain this presence in your social media’, and you have to deal with people’s expectations for your body, your gender, your cultural expectations, for your family: what’s an okay job for you to get after high school, or if it’s okay to go to college. I think it was a lot simpler when I was graduating from high school, plunked out a couple of applications via type writer. I think their lives are so much more complicated, and a lot more complicated than I think a lot of people give credence to, which I think is kinda hard.”

On what she learned from a previous relationship: “I had internalized the fact that he was never gonna want to have kids. And I stayed because I was like ‘But maybe he’ll change!’ You know, the stupid weak woman, ‘I can change him!’ or ‘Maybe I don’t want to have kids.’ At some point it was like NO, girl! … No matter how much we loved each other, it wasn’t enough. And that was an incredibly hard thing for me to wrap my head around: how can I love you, and you love me, and we’re so good together… And we don’t want the same things. It was hard to let that go. … Things worked out better than I ever could have imagined, but I think letting go of the fantasy of it was really hard.”

On what she learned from becoming a mom: “I would never have said I was a patient person before I had kids. I think I’m wired for impatience, and children of all ages, shapes, and size really force you to slow down. … We will stop, and we will wait. And I think you notice more that way. … [My son] used to love to go out and just cruise around when it was raining. My pre-mother self would have been annoyed, like we’re getting wet, and why can’t we just get to where we’re going!? It teaches you to really slow down, and notice. He noticed worms on the sidewalk, and we floated leaves in the gutter. As an adult, you miss that stuff, if you’re like me, always impatient and in a hurry. The act of slowing down and being more present is pretty magical.”

On her greatest success in life: “How I was raised, being a good wife and a good mom. I think my family is—and I’m totally gonna cry—the most important. And they know that, and they can count on me. Our kids are good people. Mr. McGuirk and I have a successful marriage. All that stuff… I think that’s the win! And I know that’s not the uh, feminist answer. (laughs) But there you go, girl!”

On her greatest failure: “It’s not a singular, specific thing. But especially growing up where I come from, people look like Barbies. … Singularly, they’re dumb things. Like trying to straighten my hair so I could look like everybody else. Or trying to be skinnier, or not doing this sport, or that activity, because it wasn’t ‘cool’ or ‘appropriate for women’. So a million of those little choices. … As an adult woman, I can’t believe I was that person.

Because now I talk to girls all day long, and I’m like ‘You don’t need that BS! You don’t need to look a certain way, or act a certain way! You should raise your hand, and be the first person to volunteer for things, and you should never squash your ideas!’ But I was totally in that mindset that you had to be this image. It took a long time to get to adulthood and be like… No. Actually, you don’t. Fool, you don’t! … At some point I was like, no dumb ass, there are no ‘cool girls’! There’s just a bunch of women doing their thing. Do your thing, girl! It’s embarrassing to think how long it took me to realize that in hind sight.”

A piece of advice: “It is okay to be who you are, and in the end, you don’t have to apologize… Because no one is honestly paying as much attention as you think they are. And I think that was one of the big aha moments: oh my god, no one cares! No one cares what I am doing. And I don’t mean it in a malicious way. If you wanna have those clothes, or that hair, or if you want to choose that career, or if you like that type of person… No one cares. As long as you’re kind to people, as long as you’re a good human being… Nobody gives a shit.”

On future plans: “Honestly, I want to stay healthy enough to be able to enjoy the life that I’ve built. I dig it! Honestly I’m super happy. I love my life, I think it’s good. I’m sure I should have some other aspirations, but… I’m pretty happy. Trying to run a little faster. But cool if I don’t too!”

—

Mrs. McGuirk dropped so many amazing truth bombs on us during our interview, and I’m so glad that she agreed to talk with me on such an intimate level about so many things. There’s nothing specific in our interview that I wanted to expand upon, since I think our conversation was pretty complete on its own, and I did ask a lot of followup questions during the interview, rather than thinking of them after.

One of the most interesting things about Mrs. McGuirk for me right now, and her husband Mr. McGuirk, who was my math teacher for both junior and senior years of high school, is that their 10-year-old son was actually one of my first students. I remember how she was pregnant with him while I was still in high school. It’s insane to think about how I could have walked up to her, while I was still my incredibly shy and reclusive 17-year-old self and told her, “Hey, I’m going to be your baby’s music teacher in 8 years!”

And they’re not the only ones! There have been quite a few other teachers I had in middle school or high school who are now the parents of my students. I was their student, and now their kid is MY student. It’s just one of those weird… Cool… Ways of blatantly seeing how time has passed and how people—specifically myself—have changed.

Episode 7 - My Best Friend's Mother

Welcome to the next episode of the Wise Not Withered Podcast! This week’s interviewee is the mother of one of my best friends. I’ve known this wonderful, kind lady for a little over ten years, and it was really great to get to know her even more. My friend and I always say how alike our mothers are, in their overall positive and upbeat demeanor.

About her relationship with her mother: “I was pretty rebellious as a kid—I was the fourth of five kids. So I think by the time I came along, my mom had kind of seen it all, was kinda tired… So I didn’t feel like I had a very close relationship with my mom. It felt like she was kinda checked out.

My siblings were a lot older. She started her career—she worked at the telephone company, and she worked the night shifts. Her shifts started at 3 PM and ended at midnight. So after school, I didn’t see her. So I just felt like I didn’t have a really strong or good relationship with her.

In high school, we started having a better relationship, which is odd because I think it’s the opposite for a lot of other people. But that’s when we started talking, and learning about each other. And from then on, high school on, I felt like I had a good relationship with her. But not early on.”

About her job as a clerk at the Marine Corps Air Station: “I liked working at the Marine Corps Air Station, because I got to meet a lot of Marines, and they were from all over the US. And I was a young thing, so they’d all talk to me. But it was so interesting to get to know all these different people from all these different places. Being in Hawaii is kind of sheltered. Meeting people from Mississippi, for instance, well that was a big deal. Wow, Mississippi! New York! Things like that—it was very interesting for me. I found that I liked talking with the people, and helping them. So that was good.”

About one of her biggest challenges: “I think one of them has been knowing that I can’t do everything. That was really hard for me to accept. When I was in my mid-30’s, [when my kids were two and seven], I decided I wanted to go back to school, and finish my undergrad. I had dropped out in Hawaii, to go to the beach, work at the pizza place, all that fun stuff, and I never finished. … I was working a full-time job, and I was supervising about ten people. Up until then, I had never felt any limitations about anything that I could do. So I went back to school, full-time. And I was working full-time.

I did it for about a year and a half. Then I crashed. I started having anxiety attacks. … I would stay up til like 1 o’clock in the morning, studying and writing papers. I would sleep til about 4:00, get up and study a little bit, go to work. Drinking coffee, diet coke, because I had to stay awake. [My doctor] said, ‘I think your body is telling you that you’re doing too much.’ I said oh no! I can do this. I have always done this. I can always burn the candle at both ends, I can do anything. I never thought anything would stop me.

I mean, looking back on it now, it makes total sense. What was happening was I wasn’t getting enough sleep, I was over-caffeinated, so I on overload. That was a really rude awakening for me. I was 35, and I thought what? Up until now, I was able to do anything I set my mind out to do. How can this be happening to me? And I was really mad at myself and upset.

My doctor said, okay I want you to talk to a therapist. I’m like, I don’t need that! He said well, just give it a try. And I’m so glad he said that. Because in talking to a therapist—somebody who will actually listen to you for an hour—it really made me stop and think that wow, you know, I’m really hard on myself. I expect that I can do this, and this, and that… I never wanted to ask for help.

So it brought me to the realization that I can’t do everything, that that’s not a bad thing. It’s okay to ask for help. When you’re overwhelmed, it’s okay to step back from it for a bit, and take a break. Until then I’d just been go-go-go. That was the hardest thing for me to accept. … Up until then I expected I could do anything, and I expected everybody else to be just like me. I had to readjust what I thought about myself and what I expected from others as well. So it was a good thing that I learned then, instead of later.”

About a failure at the time, and what she learned: “Thinking about work… There were times earlier, when I was in my 30’s, where I was very impatient. … One day, [I got into an argument at work with someone with a strong personality like mine]. We were yelling at each other. That wasn’t my finest moment. Afterwards, my boss talked to me and said, ‘That was very inappropriate. You’re not supposed to yell to get your point across. Yeah, he was mouthing back to you and provoking you, but you have to take the high road, and that was very wrong, the way you handled that.’ So that really hurt, because I still felt I was right, and [the other guy] was wrong. But my boss told me that wasn’t the right way to handle that.

After that I felt very embarrassed, I felt like oh I’m a failure, I didn’t handle that correctly. In the heat of the moment, I was yelling at him. But then, because of that, I had to really stop and think and say, you know as mad as I am at him and think yeah I’m right, I have to look in the mirror and say you know, I was at fault. I shouldn’t have done that. So that was really hard for me. Because I just felt I’m right, you’re wrong, shut up. I had to really take a step back and acknowledge that I wasn’t.

At the time I was devastated. I was just like oh no, how can I go back to work? I was so embarrassed, how can I face him and everybody who listened to it? But I talked to him. I apologized, and he did too. We came to a better understanding. And then separately, I went and talked to the other people and apologized for my conduct. I wanted everybody to know that I had done some introspection, and that I felt that was not appropriate. I didn’t want them to think oh, it’s okay to go around yelling at people, because she did it.

At the time, I felt really devastated, I thought it was the most horrible thing. But now when I look back at it, I think that was good, because I really learned a lot from that situation.”

I’ve heard that come up a lot—it’s more important how you damage control afterward. We all explode at different times, but how you handle it after is more important. Cause you have to admit that you did something wrong, which is really hard to do.

Episode 5 - Kirsten Malinee

Welcome to the 5th episode of the Wise Not Withered Show! This time I interviewed the lovely Kirsten Malinee. We met at a women’s retreat that focused on creativity and connection.

“I’m completely conflict-avoidant. I would rather not speak, which is in its own way is conflict. (laughs) So I’m learning to not give my power away, and have my voice.”

“I do love to take classes. I register for a lot of them. I don’t always finish them. I don’t always get as much out of them as I think I’m going to get out of them. I collect them, in a way, like people collect ceramic bunnies. (laughs) I have everything I need to do everything I want to do in my life. I really do.”

“Do things truthfully, with a purpose. And don’t pretend to pretend.”

“Say what you need to say. Have conversations with people that you need to have, because you may never get the chance.”

“Make choices around your values rather than just ending up somewhere. I moved from existing and getting by into thriving in a different way. Life is good, and dreams have come true.”

“I don’t think it has anything to do with accomplishments. I think it has to do with the way I decided live my life. Deciding to always continue growing, stay curious, and continually learn, and develop myself. A lot of people, I think, my age are thinking about retirement as a way to you know, quit working, and go sit on a beach somewhere, survive to the best they can or whatever. And I’m at a point where I’m thinking okay, I’m gonna retire in a certain amount of years. I want to develop an independent career for myself to have then. So that I am doing work that is truly fulfilling, and comes from a sense of my purpose and passion. … That’s my greatest accomplishment: always having hope to learn, understand, and share more.”

“I think that all of my failures stem from the same thing. And that’s being afraid. Being afraid to put myself out there. Being afraid to brag about myself that promotes what I can do for someone else. Being afraid to take a chance. … Questioning myself because of fear of how other people will perceive me… That is the worst way to write anything, and it’s the worst way to live. That self-consciousness, and fear that the self-consciousness that comes with it.”

“[When it comes to impact on other people], I don’t think we know. … You don’t know what you share may seem so little and so inconsequential in how you show up with other people and what you share with them. And if you’re honest with them about the things that are inspiring you and what you’re learning in that moment, and they pick it up. You may never know, but it could have a profound impact on their life.”