Latest up from Spoken Label (Author / Artist / Spoken Word Podcast) is the amazing, multi talented Christine Stoddard. Christine Stoddard is a Salvadoran-American writer, actor, director, and artist creating books, films, plays, murals, etc. She founded Quail Bell Magazine and Quail Bell Press & Productions. Her books include Heaven is a Photograph, Hello, New York: The Living And Dead, Naomi & The Reckoning, Desert Fox by the Sea, Belladonna Magic, and Water for the Cactus Woman, among others. In its review of Stoddard's work, Glassworks wrote that "[Stoddard] tells stories in magical and hauntingly beautiful ways." In a Poetry Foundation/Luna Luna Magazine feature, her hybrid poetry and photography book Water for the Cactus Woman was praised for its portrayal of "the fragmented nature of Latinidad." This same book placed in a university-wide competition across academic disciplines for work concerning families, winning the Nyman Family Award during Stoddard's time as an MFA candidate at The City College of New York. Old Dominion University invited her to be its 2021 Hispanic Heritage Month keynote speaker for her non-fiction book, Hispanic & Latino Heritage in Virginia. Supported by a 2020 Space Grant from 1708 Gallery, Stoddard premiered her first feature, Sirena's Gallery, an arthouse feature, after directing shorts such as Bottled, Virtual Caress, Butterflies, Drunken History, and Brooklyn Burial. In June 2022, she directed her nationally award-winning play, "Mi Abuela, Queen of Nightmares" at the Gene Frankel Theatre in New York City.  Previously, she was the first-ever artist-in-residence at Lenox Hill Neighborhood House in Manhattan and served as an inaugural AnkhLave Arts Alliance artist fellow at the Queens Botanical Garden. She was part of the first cohort of resident artists at Woodlawn Plantation, originally part of George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate, and Brooklyn Public Library-Eastern Parkway Branch. The Puffin Foundation awarded her individual artist grants in photography and film. She is one of the subjects in the documentaries "Artists Unmasked" (dir. Dario Mohr) and "Poetry, New York" (dir. Patrick Pfister). Stoddard is a graduate of VCUarts and The City College of New York.  She lives in Brooklyn, New York and regularly produces plays and showcases for the Broadway Comedy Club in Manhattan. Her website is: http://www.worldofchristinestoddard.com/

Today's Spoken Label Podcast (Author / Artist / Spoken Word Podcast) features extracts from the debut novel by the late Annie O'Neill Stein. I was contacted to feature Annie for October's 2022 Spoken Label back at the end of August 2022 regarding her debut novel 'Exit Wounds'. Sadly, Annie sadly passed away before I was able to speak to her and so instead as a tribute to this talented writer are several extracts off her novel by Susan Blakely in tribute to Annie. Exit Wounds is the story off Laura "Born to shanty Irish on one side and Park Avenue privilege on the other, Laura navigates a turbulent childhood filled with the alcohol-fueled abuse of her volatile father and her mother's excessive drinking. As the middle child of three girls, she assigns herself the role of her mother's protector, who dies when Laura is thirteen, leaving her heartbroken and adrift. Insecure, anxious, and fearful, she tries drugs, random sex, and a sequence of lovers. Along the way she becomes a successful painter and has a bad first marriage. Nothing however seems to assuage her emptiness and her sense of loss. Eventually, she marries a caring man and has a loving daughter. It is only at the end of her life and by way of an unusual and unexpected turn of events that she is finally able to make peace with herself, to let go of the feeling that she never really grieved, and said goodbye to her beloved mother, and to appreciate that though we work at love and acceptance, sometimes the most wonderful experiences in our lives come in unanticipated and unsought ways. Annie O'Neill Stein has an engaging voice- quirky, funny, full of original observations and expressions, as she adroitly explores the mysteries of the human heart." Native New Yorker Annie O’Neill Stein moved to Los Angeles in the early eighties as an actress. After many small parts in TV series, from Miami Vice to Charlie’s Angels, she decided to follow her true passion, writing. Being accepted to Sewanee Writers Conference to study with Alice McDermott planted the seed for Exit Wounds, her first novel. Annie has written for several magazines, More, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Distinction, Folks and was a regular contributor to The Huffington Post for several years." Because I tend to read fiction cinematically, I saw each chapter of Exit Wounds as fully realized scenes in a movie. It isn’t a happy book and it’s not a sad book. It’s a brave, raw story of redemption infused with clever and witty black Irish humor. -- Moritz Borman, Producer Snowden, Terminator Salvation, Basic, Savages It manages to be harrowing and hopeful in equal measure. The scenes of a childhood defined by a brutal drunk beating a young girl's dying mother are as scarifying as any coming of age novel I’ve read, and the scenes of a life lived in defiance of the script she was handed is no less than thrilling. -- Tom Lutz, Distinguished Professor and Chair of Creative Writing, UC Riverside/Founding Editor in Chief and Publisher of the Los Angeles Review of Books Exit Wounds, Annie O’Neill Stein’s debut novel will draw you in, tug at your heart, and help you appreciate the subtle pleasure of black irish humor. She hooks you in with her original voice and takes you on a journey without sugar coating or apology and helps one understand the importance of an examined life. -- Bob Wallace, Former Managing Editor, Rolling Stone Annie O’Neill Stein’s novel Exit Wounds is a striking debut. Her writing is sensory, emotionally honest, and darkly comic. Like Laura, her main character, Stein is a rule breaker. She takes the reader on a wild and satisfying ride. -- Jan Cherubin, author of Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2020, The Orphan's Daughter thepermanentpress.com/products/exit-wounds www.annieoneillstein.com