Along The Seam – Details, episodes & analysis

This conversation with Marina Cantacuzino takes on the topic of forgiveness.

Marina is an author, broadcaster and an award-winning journalist who has been widely published in British media. In 2003, in response to the invasion of Iraq, she embarked on a personal storytelling project collecting stories of people who had lived through trauma and injustice, and yet sought forgiveness rather than revenge. As a result, Marina founded The Forgiveness Project. She has published multiple books about Forgiveness, a podcast called ‘The F Word’ and she speaks widely on the topic.

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• Find all the episodes at: www.alongtheseam.com

This conversation with Freddy Mutanguha is about peace education and what it takes for neighbors to heal from generations of violence, discrimination and weaponized rhetoric.

Freddy is CEO of the Aegis Trust and Director of the Kigali Genocide Memorial. Freddy led the development of Aegis’ peace education programme in Rwanda and is now leading Aegis’ work to take this model beyond the borders of Rwanda to areas at risk, including the Central African Republic, South Sudan and Kenya. He is also a survivor of the Genocide Against the Tutsis. He was a teenager in 1994 when his parents and most of his siblings were killed. He has dedicated his life to teaching about the impact of the Genocide and the importance of forgiveness as way of post-conflict reconstruction.

For more from Rachael and Along The  Seam, sign up for the Along The Seam newsletter.

• If you’d like more from Rachael Cerrotti: subscribe to the Along The Seam newsletter
• Find all the episodes at: www.alongtheseam.com

*To Note: ALONG THE SEAM was formerly named The Memory Generation. In this first season, you will hear Rachael use that title in the intro and outro.*

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Phuc is an award-winning author, high school Latin teacher and tattoo artist based in Portland, Maine. His memoir Sigh, Gone was published in 2020 and is a coming-of-age story that explores growing up in rural Pennsylvania as a punk rock Vietnamese refugee. In this conversation, we talk about his realities being the only Vietnamese family in an all-white town, family abuse, sensitivities around retelling stories of trauma, and about tattoos and how they can be the manifestation of memories. 

Rachael and Phuc recorded this conversation on November 21, 2022 in Portland, Maine.

• If you’d like more from Rachael Cerrotti: subscribe to the Along The Seam newsletter
• Find all the episodes at: www.alongtheseam.com

*To Note: ALONG THE SEAM was formerly named The Memory Generation. In this first season, you will hear Rachael use that title in the intro and outro.*

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Mira Ptacin is a writer, educator and activist who lives on an island in Maine with her husband, two children and a whole bunch of rescue animals. She teaches creative writing at Colby College, leads memoir workshops to incarcerated women at the Maine Correctional Center, and is a frequent contributor to the New York Times. She has written two books - The In-Betweens: The Spiritualists, Mediums, and Legends of Camp Etna as well as the award-winning memoir Poor Your Soul.  She describes herself as writing about ‘the uterus and the American Dream’ and has written extensively about grief, motherhood and family storytelling. In this conversation, we dig into Mira's 2016 memoir Poor Your Soul. The book weaves together the story of the loss of her brother when she was just a teenager and then the loss of an unborn child when she was in her twenties. 

Mira & Rachael recorded this conversation on October 9, 2022 in Portland, Maine. 

• If you’d like more from Rachael Cerrotti: subscribe to the Along The Seam newsletter
• Find all the episodes at: www.alongtheseam.com

*To Note: ALONG THE SEAM was formerly named The Memory Generation. In this first season, you will hear Rachael use that title in the intro and outro.*

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In this episode of Along The  Seam, we explore memory through a contemporary queer experience. Dubbs Weinblatt is the founder of Thank You For Coming Out which is an improv show, podcast and soon-to-be book that aims to create a space of belonging for the queer community by uplifting and celebrating stories of coming out and coming into oneself. During this conversation, we talk about Dubbs wrestling with their Jewish identity, the closing off of oneself to family history during times of pain and how loved ones may struggle with witnessing the growth that happens during self discovery.

This conversation was recorded on October 3rd, 2022 through Zoom. Rachael was in Portland, Maine and Dubbs was at their home in Brooklyn, New York.

• If you’d like more from Rachael Cerrotti: subscribe to the Along The Seam newsletter
• Find all the episodes at: www.alongtheseam.com

*To Note: ALONG THE SEAM was formerly named The Memory Generation. In this first season, you will hear Rachael use that title in the intro and outro.*

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On this episode of Along The Seam, we are joined by Gina Martin to talk about memory loss through the lens of Alzheimer’s  and Dementia. Gina has been a force in the photography world for decades and spent 21 years working for National Geographic representing photographer’s work worldwide. Her mother was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's at the age of 65 and after she passed away in 2016, Gina started The Bob & Diane Fund which annually grants $5000 to a photographer documenting Dementia. In this conversation, Gina shares her experience watching her mother suffer from the disease, her father's role as the caregiver and how the experience changed the course of her life. Rachael and Gina recorded this conversation on October 6, 2022.

• If you’d like more from Rachael Cerrotti: subscribe to the Along The Seam newsletter
• Find all the episodes at: www.alongtheseam.com

*To Note: ALONG THE SEAM was formerly named The Memory Generation. In this first season, you will hear Rachael use that title in the intro and outro.*

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In this episode of Along The Seam, Rachael talks with author Elizabeth Rosner about her book Survivor Cafe: The Legacy of Trauma and the Labyrinth of Memory. Both of Elizabeth’s parents were Holocaust survivors and she has carried their stories from the day she was born.  Some stories she was told and others she learned through the silences that threaded their way through her childhood. She began writing about her family history from a young age through poetry and fiction and now explores the topics of inherited trauma and epigenetics through non fiction. Her books teach us that it is our sensitivities that will save us and highlights how we are all connected through very intrinsic human experiences. 

Rachael and Elizabeth recorded this conversation on October 10, 2022. Elizabeth was at her home in Berkeley, California and Rachael was in Portland, Maine.

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Elizabeth in The Along The Seam Newsletter:
• The Labyrinth of Memory

• If you’d like more from Rachael Cerrotti: subscribe to the Along The Seam newsletter
• Find all the episodes at: www.alongtheseam.com

 *To Note: ALONG THE SEAM was formerly named The Memory Generation. In this first season, you will hear Rachael use that title in the intro and outro.*

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This story starts with two best friends and grew up in Berlin in the 1930s. Together, the young girls experienced rising antisemitism and in 1939, each of their families fled. At just 9-years-old, they said a tearful goodbye to each other and promised to keep in touch, but neither knew where the other one went or if they even survived. One of these girls, a woman named Betty Grebenschikoff, who is now in her 90s, never stopped looking for her best friend. And amazingly 82 years later, thanks to the testimony Betty gave to USC Shoah Foundation in 1997, the two women were reunited.  In this conversation, Rachael and Betty discuss how memories of our past can change as life unfolds. 

Betty & Rachael recorded this conversation on April 7, 2022 at Betty’s home in St. Petersburg, Florida. Betty passed away not long after the episode aired.
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• If you’d like more from Rachael Cerrotti: subscribe to the Along The Seam newsletter
• Find all the episodes at: www.alongtheseam.com

*To Note: ALONG THE SEAM was formerly named The Memory Generation. In this first season, you will hear Rachael use that title in the intro and outro.*

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On this episode, Rachael is joined by actress Alina Zievakova who is originally from Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine but now lives in Kyiv. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Alina has been using theater as an act of resistance and as a way to help others process their trauma and wartime experiences. Alina (who speaks 7 languages) shares with us her experiences during this period of war. She takes us  from the first day of the invasion, to her choice not to leave, to love during wartime and her hopes for the future. She also shares her experience collecting testimony from her fellow Ukrainians and working as a fixer with foreign journalists. She opens up about bearing witness to the war while struggling to survive herself, and about how she insists on sharing what she’s seen, even when her own family doesn't believe her. You can read the transcript of our conversation here.

Alina featured in The Along The Seam Newsletter

• I Always Wanted to Be Like Hannah Arendt

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• If you’d like more from Rachael Cerrotti: subscribe to the Along The Seam newsletter
• Find all the episodes at: www.alongtheseam.com

*To Note: ALONG THE SEAM was formerly named The Memory Generation. In this first season, you will hear Rachael use that title in the intro and outro.*

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On this episode of Along The Seam, Rachael is joined by National Geographic photographer Pete Muller. Pete is an award-winner photographer, filmmaker and artist who has covered topics of war, uprisings, gender constructs, and social movements around the world.  In this conversation, they dig into Pete's recent project for the magazine -- a multicultural exploration of the concept of 'solastalgia'. Solastalgia is a newly-developed word that speaks to the emotional and existential distress caused by environmental change. Pete spent more than 2 years traveling around the world to document communities whose home environments have significantly changed. 
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• If you’d like more from Rachael Cerrotti: subscribe to the Along The Seam newsletter
• Find all the episodes at: www.alongtheseam.com